The vacation season must be a time of celebration, not concern. However for facility and office leaders, this time of 12 months brings greater than twinkling lights and time-off requests; it’s one of the difficult intervals for sustaining website safety.
Throughout the globe, property crimes spike through the holidays as buildings sit emptier, employees rotations change, and deliveries surge. Add within the distractions of year-end deadlines and seasonal occasions, and it’s simple to see how even a well-secured constructing can turn out to be weak.
That’s why now’s the second to behave. Earlier than employees begin heading out for vacation breaks or end-of-year upkeep begins, facility, safety, and upkeep groups must get aligned. Who’s within the constructing, after they’ll be there, and the way they’ll acquire entry are questions that may’t be left unanswered.
With fewer folks on website and extra guests, distributors, and contractors coming and going, you want programs that may confirm each id and each entry level.
Key insights
- Vacation intervals improve facility danger. World knowledge reveals property crimes rise sharply through the holidays, making proactive facility planning important
- Visibility is your greatest protection. A contemporary customer administration system with facial recognition supplies the oversight wanted to regulate entry and keep compliance
- Cross-team collaboration drives safety success. Facility, IT, and safety alignment ensures easy operations, even when staffing is diminished or schedules shift
A contemporary customer administration system (VMS) with facial recognition capabilities offers you that visibility — making certain that solely accepted people enter and that each interplay is logged and traceable. It’s additionally the right time to tighten coordination between your inside groups: facility managers setting diminished constructing hours, safety monitoring entry logs, and upkeep utilizing downtime to clear backlogged work orders with out compromising security.
The aim isn’t simply to outlive the vacation slowdown; it’s to make use of it strategically. By combining sensible planning, built-in know-how, and robust collaboration, you may safeguard your services, defend your folks, and switch the vacations right into a mannequin of operational readiness as a substitute of seasonal danger.
Vacation-specific facility safety dangers
Property crime tends to rise between late November and early January, when occupancy ranges drop and safety protection thins. A U.S. evaluation discovered that property crimes improve by roughly 10–15% throughout December in comparison with different months. Globally, the sample is comparable: when places of work are quieter, opportunistic intrusions improve.
For facility leaders, which means figuring out how your personal operations change throughout this time. Staffing reductions, prolonged closures, and fluctuating upkeep schedules can all create new vulnerabilities. Unattended lobbies, darkened parking areas, and diminished entry monitoring can rapidly turn out to be factors of publicity.
Step one is to map your dangers. Evaluate which days or perhaps weeks can have restricted employees presence, decide when deliveries or upkeep work are deliberate, and make sure who will probably be chargeable for oversight throughout these intervals. Deal with the vacation calendar as a residing safety doc—one thing your workforce displays and updates weekly.
Frequent weak factors in buildings
Even probably the most subtle facility has areas that turn out to be weaker beneath seasonal stress. Entry management, customer administration, and perimeter monitoring are the three areas most frequently affected. When fewer persons are current, an open door or misplaced credential might go unnoticed.
Customer and contractor administration additionally turns into a problem. Many services use the quieter vacation interval to schedule overdue repairs or upgrades, which means extra short-term staff on website. With out correct id verification, even well-intentioned contractors can inadvertently create entry vulnerabilities.
In the meantime, parking heaps and loading docks are simple targets when visitors slows. Making certain cameras, lighting, and movement sensors stay lively in these zones can deter intrusions. Conducting a brief “vacation safety stroll” with each facility and safety groups may help determine bodily and procedural blind spots earlier than they flip into incidents.
Collaborating with safety groups
The simplest safety plans start with collaboration. Facility, upkeep, IT, and safety groups ought to meet effectively earlier than the vacation interval to align on protection, duties, and escalation protocols.
Throughout this planning session, define which areas of the constructing will stay open, which can shut, and the way programs equivalent to lighting, HVAC, and entry management will regulate. Upkeep can use this time to plan non-critical repairs whereas safety ensures the best permissions are in place for any visiting contractors.
Equally essential is communication. In case your group makes use of a digital operations dashboard or CAFM platform, be sure vacation hours, constructing maps, and emergency contacts are seen to everybody. Doc each schedule change and share it with management so there’s no confusion as soon as diminished operations start.
Safety tech and greatest practices
Know-how does the heavy lifting throughout low-staff intervals, however solely when it’s used strategically. Begin by auditing your present programs: customer administration, entry management, and surveillance. Confirm integrations are lively and that momentary credentials expire robotically after use.
If you happen to haven’t already, think about implementing facial recognition or different biometric entry options. These instruments eradicate badge sharing and assist verify id in actual time, offering stronger verification when new or momentary guests arrive.
Good cameras and AI-enabled monitoring programs also can detect uncommon entry patterns, after-hours exercise, or unauthorized presence in restricted zones. Many services are layering this knowledge into their built-in office administration platforms to set off automated alerts for the safety workforce or services lead.
Coaching stays simply as crucial as know-how. Earlier than the vacations, conduct a short refresher session for entrance desk, safety, and upkeep employees to assessment the right way to log guests, reply to alarms, and escalate incidents. Easy consciousness—understanding what seems misplaced—can forestall the most typical safety lapses.
Getting ready for diminished employees or hours
A profitable “vacation mode” plan begins with understanding who’s within the constructing and who isn’t. Facility leaders ought to finalize occupancy maps exhibiting which zones stay operational, that are closed, and which can host contractor work. Safety ought to regulate entry rights accordingly and make sure that closed areas are each bodily and digitally locked.
If you happen to plan to close down particular flooring or departments, coordinate with upkeep and IT to deactivate lighting and HVAC whereas maintaining surveillance lively. This not solely cuts prices but in addition narrows the world that wants monitoring.
Diminished staffing doesn’t imply diminished consciousness. Assign a single level of contact for on-call facility and safety escalation, and make sure that each one crucial programs—from cameras to badge readers—are remotely monitored. Use downtime to your benefit: schedule preventive upkeep, run safety checks, and put together programs for the brand new 12 months.
When regular operations resume, conduct a short post-holiday assessment. Audit momentary entry credentials, assessment VMS logs, and observe any irregularities. Doc what labored and what didn’t so subsequent 12 months’s plan begins even stronger.
Flip vacation downtime right into a safety benefit
The vacation season doesn’t must be a safety danger—it may be a take a look at of how effectively your group coordinates, communicates, and makes use of know-how to remain proactive. With built-in programs, a robust customer administration course of, and a workforce that is aware of precisely what to anticipate, you may defend your areas whereas sustaining operational effectivity.
Begin now. Align your groups, replace your VMS and entry management insurance policies, and schedule that pre-holiday planning session. The season strikes quick, and preparedness at present means peace of thoughts tomorrow.
Regularly requested questions
By Amanda Meade
Amanda Meade is a content material creator at Eptura, specializing in office expertise, assembly productiveness, and rising tendencies in workspace planning and customer administration. With a background in content material advertising and search engine optimization, she crafts clear, actionable content material that helps groups work smarter by way of in-office collaboration. All through her profession, Amanda has labored throughout industries, together with house companies, healthcare, actual property, and SaaS, growing a singular skill to distill complicated subjects into sensible insights.
