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The Dutch summer holiday season is the most predictable security risk in the commercial calendar.
Every year, from late July through August, the same pattern plays out across commercial buildings, industrial facilities, and office complexes throughout the Netherlands. Staffing levels drop, sometimes to a skeleton presence. Buildings that normally have fifty or a hundred people moving through them every day are suddenly occupied by a handful. Access control credential lists that were correct in June contain the names of people who are now unreachable (sometimes for up to for six weeks). The contractors and cleaning teams who normally operate under staff supervision are working in buildings with minimal oversight.
And the physical security infrastructure including the access control systems, the cameras, the alarm monitoring continues to operate on the assumption that nothing significant has changed.
This is the summer security gap. It is not a dramatic vulnerability. It is a structural one: a mismatch between the level of physical presence that the security system was designed to work alongside, and the reduced presence that exists for six to eight weeks every year. And it is almost entirely preventable with the right preparation.
The access control question
The most common finding when we support clients through a summer security review is that their access control credential database does not reflect the building’s current population.
Over the course of a year, organisations accumulate access credentials issued to people who no longer need them. Former employees who were never formally offboarded from the access system. Contractors who completed a project six months ago but whose credentials were never revoked. Temporary staff issued site access for a specific period that has long since passed. Summer interns who received building access in July and whose credentials were never removed in September.
In a normally occupied building, the practical risk of these credentials is manageable. There are enough people present to notice unfamiliar faces, and the general activity level makes opportunistic access more difficult. In a summer-reduced building, those mitigating factors are absent.
A credential audit before the summer period, identifying and revoking every active credential that belongs to someone who should no longer have access, is the most effective access security measure a facilities team can take before July. It requires time, but it requires little technical knowledge, and the outcome is a demonstrably cleaner, more accurate access estate going into the most vulnerable period of the year.
Remote monitoring and alarm response
Many Dutch commercial buildings rely on a combination of on-site response and remote alarm monitoring for security out of hours. During normal operations, the response chain is well-rehearsed – an alarm triggers, monitoring contacts the site, a keyholder is identified and dispatched.
In the summer period, that chain is often broken in ways that are not formally recognised. The primary keyholder is on holiday. The secondary keyholder is also on holiday. The third contact on the list has not been updated in two years and the mobile number is no longer valid. The alarm monitoring centre attempts to reach someone and cannot, and the response is delayed or does not happen at all.
Testing the keyholder and alarm response chain before the summer period confirming that every contact is current, reachable, and available for the weeks in question is not an onerous task. It is a telephone call or an email. But it is a task that a surprisingly large number of facilities teams do not formally complete before the summer begins.
The same logic applies to camera system recording and remote monitoring configuration. If your CCTV infrastructure is set to record on motion detection, it is worth confirming that the sensitivity settings are appropriate for a lower-occupancy environment. A system tuned for fifty people in a building may not be set to capture activity in the same way when the building is reduced to five.
Physical perimeter and access points
Summer building works are a consistent source of physical security vulnerabilities. The reduced supervision that characterises the holiday period means that contractors undertaking maintenance, cleaning, or minor construction work often operate with less oversight than during normal working periods.
Propped fire doors. Unlocked service entrances. Ground-floor windows left open for ventilation. Loading dock access managed informally rather than through the normal security protocol. These are not theoretical risks, they are the findings that appear consistently in post-incident reviews of summer security breaches.
A simple physical check of the building’s perimeter and access points before the reduced-staffing period begins, confirming that every controlled access point is correctly configured, that temporary site access for contractors is formally managed through the access control system rather than through ad hoc key issuance, and that any planned works have been communicated to the alarm monitoring provider significantly reduces the exposure.
What to do with your building management systems
Modern commercial buildings in the Netherlands increasingly operate integrated building management systems that combine security, HVAC, lighting, and access control on a single platform. This integration creates efficiencies in normal operations. It also means that a failure in one part of the system can have consequences that are not immediately obvious in another.
Before the summer period, it is worth confirming with your system provider that scheduled maintenance windows are planned for low-occupancy periods rather than during high-traffic operational weeks. Firmware updates applied to access control hardware during a busy operational period carry higher risk of disruption than the same updates applied during a building’s quietest weeks. Summer is also a reasonable time for a proactive health check of the physical security infrastructure including server performance, storage capacity on video management systems, battery backup status on door controllers and alarm panels.
Preparing your team
The final element of summer security preparation is often overlooked because it is organisational rather than technical. The people who will be in the building during the summer period (the skeleton staffing team, the cleaners, the contractors) need to know what to do if something happens.
Who do they contact if they observe something suspicious? What is the process for granting access to a contractor who arrives without the expected documentation? Who has authority to let someone into a restricted area if the normal access pathway is not working? What does the alarm response process look like if the primary contact is unreachable?
These questions have answers in a normally staffed building. The answers are embedded in the culture and routines of the people who are there every day. In a summer-reduced building, those answers need to be written down and given to the people who will be present.
Evolution B.V. works with building owners and facilities managers across the Netherlands to design, deliver, and maintain integrated physical security programmes.
If you would like support with a summer security review of your facility or estate, we would welcome the conversation.