Question by Anonymous: What advice do you have for retail workers on Black Friday?
An Exposé on Retail’s Toughest Season
For retail, Thanksgiving and Black Friday is the most chaotic of the holiday shopping season, with just 27 days until Christmas, turning the holiday rush into a high-stakes pressure cooker of staffing shortages, employee burnout, and operational chaos.
With U.S. holiday retail sales projected to top $1 trillion for the first time and online Black Friday spending alone expected to reach $11.7 billion (up 8.3% from last year), the stakes have never been higher. But behind the glittering deals and record-breaking sales lies the harsh reality: frontline workers are bearing the brunt, and HR is on the front lines of preventing a meltdown.
The Perfect Storm Brewing for 2025
This year’s holiday season arrives amid economic uncertainty, tighter consumer budgets (especially among Gen Z, cutting spending by up to 23%), and a shorter post-Thanksgiving sprint to Christmas. Retailers have pulled promotions forward—many Black Friday deals are already live as early as November 20—spreading out the chaos but not reducing it.
Key challenges exposing the underbelly of retail HR:
- Hiring Crunch in a Tight Labor Market — Despite projections of around 520,000 seasonal jobs (down slightly from prior years), competition for workers remains fierce. 70% of retailers plan to hire more frontline staff than in 2024, but good luck: applicants are scarcer, and turnover is brutal.
- Burnout on Steroids — Extended hours, mandatory overtime, angry customers, and personal holiday stress create a toxic mix. Frontline retail workers report skyrocketing exhaustion, with inconsistent scheduling cited as a top trigger. One stat that should alarm every HR leader: burnout risk is already 52% higher than pre-pandemic levels heading into the season.
- The Blurred Lines of “Peak Season” Flexibility — Shoppers expect seamless omnichannel experiences, but that often means workers juggling in-store rushes, online fulfillment, and last-minute shifts—with little say in their schedules.
If mishandled, these issues don’t just tank morale; they lead to higher absenteeism, poorer customer service, and a wave of resignations come January.
A Message to Every Frontline Employee
- You are allowed to have limits!
- Mandatory overtime? 6-day stretches? Clopening shifts? Say yes when you can, say no when you can’t. Your “no” isn’t disloyalty — it’s survival. The company made record profits last year; they’ll figure it out.
- Use the tools they gave you
- If your store has a shift-swap app, live in it. If they don’t, screenshot the schedule the second it drops and start negotiating in the group chat. The people who speak up first get the sane schedules.
- Document everything
- Promised holiday pay that never showed up last year? Screenshot the email. Told you’d get a break “when it slows down” and it never did? Text yourself the time you clocked in and out. When January comes and HR asks why turnover is 80%, receipts are power.
- Take your mandatory breaks — every single time
- Go to the bathroom when you have to. Eat the sandwich during your lunch break. Drink water. The line will still be there when you get back, but you might not be if you don’t take care of you.
- You are not the Grinch for wanting Thanksgiving off
- More stores than ever are closing on Turkey Day (Costco, Target, Walmart, Aldi, etc.). If yours isn’t, that’s a choice leadership made — not your fault for wanting to eat stuffing with people you love.
A Message to Every HR Person, Manager, and Scheduler Right Now
- Your people are watching who you protect. When corporate screams for “all hands on deck,” remember who actually has the hands. Approve the time-off request from the single mom. Let the college kid go home Wednesday night. The goodwill you build this month will save you six months of recruiting next year.
- Stop calling them “seasonals” like they’re disposable. Treat the temp who started yesterday like someone you want back in ten months. Because the good ones won’t be.
- Pay them to show up — really pay them $1 extra an hour isn’t a “holiday bonus,” it’s a Tuesday. If Amazon can do $22+/hr + double time on Thanksgiving week, your “competitive wage” just got smoked.
- Overstaff Black Friday on purpose. Yes, labor budget. Yes, KPIs. But one viral video of a crying cashier and your whole brand is cooked for the season. An extra body or two in every department is the cheapest insurance you’ll ever buy.
- Say thank you like you mean it. Not the generic email blast. Walk the floor. Hand-write the note. Bring the pizza at 2 a.m. when they’re fulfilling online orders. Tell them you see how hard this is. People stay for people, not policies.
To Everyone!
Retail is about to go to war with shopping carts and screaming toddlers and systems that crash at 8:01 p.m. on Black Friday.
But they’re also about to make someone’s kid light up on Christmas morning because we found the last whatever-it-is on the shelf.
They’re tired, but tough as hell.
To all my retail workers and businesses, take care of each other out there!
Clock in, do your best, clock out, go home, hug your people (or your cat, dog, or your couch, no judgment).
You’ve got this. We’ve got this!
Happy Thanksgiving. Now let’s go survive Black Friday!
Hrexposed.com is rooting for every single one of you! Have a question or would like to share your story, use the Ask HR submission form!
