My booth staff helps themselves to our giveaways (branded USB drives). They think of it as a fringe benefit for all of the travel and long hours trade shows require. What’s the best approach to stop this practice?

First, look at the bright side: Clearly, you’ve chosen your giveaways well, because not only do they appeal to your customers, they’re also highly prized by your staff.

But good taste in swag aside, your employees are probably rewarding themselves because management doesn’t. If so, a punitive-only approach might aggravate the problem because they could see it as punishment for something they feel hurts nobody, and compensates them nowhere near enough for their added work.

So instead of a punitive approach, try this simple strategy. First, acknowledge staffers’ hard work in a public forum — perhaps during a staff meeting — noting that they deserve some compensation for their efforts. Then explain that taking the giveaways may leave you with an insufficient supply for booth visitors. Instead, offer a compromise: Staff can take some leftover giveaways after the show, or suggest another reward (whatever’s within your budget) such as time off or gift cards. Let them vote on their preferred compensation, as staffers will be more likely to support a decision they had a stake in. As Dale Carnegie once said, “There is only one way ... to get anybody to do anything. And that is by making the other person want to do it.”