Executive Q&A: Mastering Facility Safety for the Festive Rush
By Express HR Solutions on 2025-09-24 20:00:16
It’s late September 2025. For India’s retail and commercial hubs, this is the final lap of preparation before the starting pistol fires on the festive season. The footfall that will hit malls, high streets, and showrooms in the coming weeks will be immense. While the operations and marketing teams are focused on maximising sales, senior leaders—COOs, Heads of Safety, and Facility Managers—are focused on a different, more critical question: Are we truly prepared to keep our customers and staff safe?
To get a clear, no-nonsense answer, we sat down with Prakash Menon, Head of Integrated Facility Services at Express HR Solutions, who has managed facility operations through dozens of peak seasons.
Q: Prakash, thank you for your time. For a senior leader overseeing large facilities, what are the top three safety risks they should be laser-focused on right now, and how can they be controlled?
A: Excellent question. It’s easy to get lost in a hundred-item checklist. But from my experience, nearly all major incidents during high-footfall events stem from a failure in one of three core areas. If you can control these, you control 90% of your risk.
Here they are:
Risk 1: Uncontrolled Crowd Flow
This is the most visible and dangerous risk. It’s not just about the number of people; it’s about their movement. Bottlenecks at entrances, exits, promotional displays, or checkout counters can quickly lead to dangerous overcrowding. This increases the risk of trips and falls, medical emergencies, and in extreme cases, stampedes.
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Immediate Mitigation Steps:
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Map and Manage Choke Points: Use floor plans to identify obvious bottlenecks. Implement one-way traffic flows in narrow aisles using simple floor arrows or signage.
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Deploy Queue Barriers: Use stanchions or temporary barricades to create organised lines at checkouts and service desks. A winding queue is much safer than a wide, chaotic mob.
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Position 'Flow Managers': Your security staff are not just guards; they are crowd managers. Position trained personnel at key junctions with the sole task of keeping people moving, preventing loitering, and politely guiding traffic.
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Monitor Occupancy in Real-Time: You must have a system - whether it’s an automated beam counter or a manual clicker - to know how many people are inside. Define your maximum safe capacity and empower your security head to temporarily halt entries when you hit 95% of that number.
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Responsible Functions: Head of Security, Floor/Store Managers.
Risk 2: Energy & Utility Stress
A modern commercial building is a power-hungry machine. During the festive season, you’re running it at 150% capacity—extended hours, full-blast air conditioning to handle the crowds, and dazzling festive lighting. This puts an incredible strain on your electrical and HVAC systems. A power failure isn't just an inconvenience; it's a major safety event. It can knock out CCTV, trigger panic, and turn a crowded space into a hot, dark, and dangerous environment.
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Immediate Mitigation Steps:
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Test Your Backup: Your backup generator (DG set) is your most important piece of safety equipment. Conduct a full load test now, not later. Ensure you have a clear schedule for daily fuel checks during the peak season.
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Service Your HVAC: The single fastest way to cause a mass exodus is for the AC to fail. Have your HVAC vendor clean all filters, check coolant levels, and service the chiller plant before the first major sales day.
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Create an Emergency Vendor List: The contact details for your licensed electrician, HVAC technician, and DG set mechanic should be printed and displayed in the facility control room. You don't want to be searching for a number during a crisis.
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Responsible Functions: Head of Facilities, Chief Engineer.
Risk 3: Critical Equipment Overload
This risk covers two areas: vertical transport (lifts and escalators) and operational technology (Point of Sale systems). We’ve all seen videos of escalators stopping abruptly, causing people to pile up. With thousands of people using them every hour, the wear and tear is immense. Similarly, if your POS network goes down, you suddenly have hundreds of frustrated customers with loaded shopping carts, creating new and unpredictable crowd blockages.
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Immediate Mitigation Steps:
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Mandate Pre-Season Maintenance: Instruct your lift and escalator AMC provider to conduct a full preventive maintenance check specifically in the first two weeks of October. Check brakes, sensors, and emergency stop mechanisms.
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Position Staff at Escalators: During the absolute peak hours, position a staff member at the top and bottom of main escalators to manage flow and assist anyone who stumbles.
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Build IT Redundancy: Your IT head must ensure every single POS machine has a tested backup internet connection (like a 5G dongle). A primary network failure should not halt your entire operation.
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Drill a Manual Fallback Plan: What happens if the systems go down completely? Have a pre-defined and drilled manual billing and payment collection process that cashiers can switch to in under five minutes.
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Responsible Functions: Head of Facilities (for transport), Head of IT (for tech).
Ultimately, ensuring safety during the festive season comes down to proactive planning, not reactive heroism. Your facility management teams and vendors are your first line of defence. Empower them, drill them, and give them the resources they need. A safe environment is the foundation for a successful and profitable season.
Is your facility management team - in-house or outsourced - truly prepared for the pressure test of the coming weeks? Express HR Solutions provides professionally trained, safety-conscious facility management personnel who understand these critical risks. Let's talk about ensuring your festive season is smooth, safe, and successful.