*This article is sponsored by Bazoom
The holiday season is approaching. As your warehouse starts to fill, the orders begin to snowball. After three weeks of hard work, staff members begin to phone in sick and take leave. One by one, they start to fall. You suddenly realize that many of them have not had a vacation for some time, and those remaining members who are left become overworked as they pick up the slack. This is the result of seasonal spikes and frontline burnout, which can be avoided with the right planning.
What Are Seasonal Spikes?
Seasonal spikes are increased periods of purchasing activity defined by the calendar and events operating within it. They are often related to the weather, its associated leisure activities, but also to other days such as Christmas, Halloween and more. Spikes may occur annually, such as in the summer, increasing the demand for outdoor clothing and equipment. Alternatively, they may come out of nowhere, perhaps if a service or product suddenly goes viral and becomes in high demand.
Managing these spikes is not just a case of diving into historical data, pinpointing when this will occur and hiring more staff. Seasonal spikes can move; they may be bigger than anticipated, arrive unplanned, or not turn up at all. Thus, their management requires a degree of flexibility, which in itself needs a higher degree of record keeping and analytics.
Without this, your business faces two scenarios: The first is that you hire staff you don’t need. This is not profitable and cuts into your margins while reducing productivity. A second scenario involves being understaffed, meaning orders don’t go out on time, your workers are overburdened and they become burnt out.
Managing Seasonal Spikes Using Workplace Planning and Forecasting
Technology presents several opportunities to manage fluctuating seasonal demands. Firstly, it can be a huge boost to your customer service. Consider using chatbots to handle customer queries or to direct them to the correct area. Luckily, these can be implemented quite cheaply and can be onboarded quickly if you have the right system.
One option that can be used across departments is a PTO tracker, which can map and forecast the paid time off your employees are taking and when they take it. This will help you get an accurate oversight of vacations, leave, paid time off and sick days. All of this can be done even if your staff are working on-site or remotely. Requests for time off can be sent digitally and employers can approve or deny them in their own time.
Once you have a grip on paid time off, you can see where bottlenecks are occurring. There may be times in the seasonal spikes when many people become ill and take time off. Alternatively, you can use it to map where and when people take paid leave and vacations. Not only does this ensure that they are getting the rest they deserve, but it also allows you to keep the correct number of staff working.
Several PTO tracking software packages exist on the market. Factorial is the number one choice for many, as it has a range of subscription tiers allowing for effective scaling from small to larger businesses. As well as paid time off, it can also manage and automate core business processes. The main benefits of a PTO tracker can be viewed at https://factorialhr.com/blog/pto-tracking-software/.
Considering Strategic Staffing Solutions
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Another solution to seasonal spikes is to think beyond simply hiring core staff. The first solution to this is obviously temporary work. These types of jobs account for a large part of vacancies in the US, with between 2.47 million advertised at the time of writing. The agriculture sector has used this option for some time, but with modern recruitment agencies, it has now become available to all sectors.
Outsourcing is another viable solution. This is the process of hiring third parties to conduct certain tasks on your behalf. Many companies decide to outsource marketing, for example, or their online infrastructure. The benefit is that they do allow you to scale up and down fairly quickly and with flexibility.
Lastly, consider looking within your organization and creating float pools. These are workers trained across several sections of the business, so you can move and reallocate people as needed. So you may have someone who works in logistics switching to warehousing or the shop floor. Forward planning is required here, as you do need to ensure they are trained appropriately.
Why Do You Need to Protect Frontline Staff From Burnout?
In 2025, burnout among US workers hit its highest level in six years, according to the 15th annual Aflac WorkForces Report. It reported that 72% of workers reported moderate to high stress levels at work. Around 74% of Gen Z experience burnout, which has overtaken the millennial age group at 66%. While these statistics covered those working in healthcare and administration, the story is similar across various sectors.
Burnout is a state of mental and physical exhaustion in the workplace. It is caused by myriad factors, including stress, boredom, overworking, or a lack of clear goals. This can manifest in a range of ways, including depression, reduced productivity, tiredness and mood swings. The World Health Organization classifies burnout as an “occupational phenomenon”. Thus, it tends to stem specifically from the workplace and is not a reaction to anything in the personal life of a person or a reaction in the human body, like natural illness or injury.
The American Psychological Association gives three pointers for employers to advise them on how to combat workplace burnout.
- The first is that they must use thoughtful and systematic surveys to check if burnout is happening in their workplace.
- Secondly, they must keep track of workloads, check in with workers and encourage taking time off. This is where a quality paid time off tracker becomes useful.
- Thirdly, it is to look at their practices to ensure they are giving workers control and flexibility to manage stress and their workload.
How Burnout Impacts Your Business
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A study taken in the United Kingdom found that an employee with burnout will cost their employer £2,646 a year, which equates to $3551. This comes from three main areas, the first of which is the loss of productivity. People with burnout don’t have the motivation or the energy to work to full capacity. Work that is completed could be unsatisfactory, or simply not done at all.
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This results in the second consequence, which is workers who are calling in sick. Increased costs for your business soon follow, as you have to hire temporary staff or even turn business away due to low employee numbers.
Lastly, staff can even leave the business altogether. Staff turnover is expensive and estimates are that replacement costs 6–9 months' salary. While this is primarily recruitment costs, other factors are also at play, such as hiring temporary staff, onboarding and training new members of the team.
Implementing Reflection Periods to Combat Burnout
While technology can help, there are also some very human aspects that can reduce the spectre of burnout. Reflection is one of these. Humans are much better at problem-solving when they are in a calm and relaxed state. Implementing times for reflection after these seasonal spikes, then bringing in the feedback in later instances, can help.
A good starting point can be found with the Gibbs Reflective Plan. Structured through six stages, it is used for the analysis of events and learning from them. The stages are as follows:
- What happened?
- What did you feel?
- What was positive about the experience?
- What else can be made of the situation?
- What else could have been done?
- If it happened again, what would you do differently?
Get your team together and ask them to contemplate several questions based on this cycle. These could be questions that are about redefining the workflow, such as how to solve bottlenecks or specific changes that would reduce stress and expectations.
Actionable Plans for Seasonal Spikes and Workplace Burnout
Burnout has a real physical cost to your business at any time of year. If it occurs at the busiest times, it presents a serious issue that not only hits the margins but can damage your reputation with customers and clients. Thus, it needs to be avoided.
Combating these does not take a lot of monetary investment. There are several tools to use, such as paid time off planners and even customer service chatbots. All of them will work more effectively depending on the sector and vertical you operate in.
Yet getting it right does involve some time commitment and should encompass looking to the past, present and future. Use technology to dive into past statistics and figures, identifying problems, issues and considering how to rectify them. Survey the current landscape: Are any issues going to delay the spike or reduce its effectiveness this year? Lastly, reflect with your staff once the spike is over. By implementing this in the next round, you will learn how to manage and reduce burnout in your workplace.
