On the management-issues.com website, this is described from the perspective of luxury watch retailer Christopher Ward. Sometimes even the co-founders and head office team help out in the stores, which is no bad thing.
1) Limited resources
The company team is relatively small, so when hundreds of orders start coming in, they could never be handled inside an appropriate time period without senior management becoming involved in mundane tasks and in the dispatch room.
Orders must be delivered to customers the following day. This is something that cannot be disputed or questioned: it is simply an established policy of the company. The customer promise of next day delivery must not be compromised.
Recently, Amazon and other big retailers have perfected their delivery process, so many customers expect this benchmark to be met by everyone. Sometimes, of course, it is necessary to hire extra temporary workers in order to ease the worst of the pressure.
2) Means of improvement
Managers exposed to different areas of the business in this way develop both personally and professionally. In terms of management, some of the lessons which are learnt during busy times can indeed prove very beneficial and open one's eyes.
3) Motivation and morale
Busy periods present a unique set of challenges for the company and its culture. High pressure is tackled by making it at least to some extent fun. Internal mini-campaigns are started with posters around the office and there is often some pizza available. Shifts are kept relatively short, four hours being a maximum. As a result, fatigue doesn’t really have a chance to set in and fewer mistakes occur. When managers work with the rest of the staff, it also demonstrates their appreciation of the team's efforts.
-jk-