My booth staff wants special schedules at trade shows for everything from smoke breaks to lunch breaks. How do I address their needs without shafting those who don't make special requests?

Depending on the physical and mental demands of their responsibilities, people need to take breaks, which can recharge them for the remainder of the day. The most important thing will be to achieve fairness in the accommodations you make for your employees.

Regardless of the reason for them, breaks during a show should be regulated to make sure the booth is always adequately staffed. With that in mind, before you formally work up a plan, advise your HR department of your actions so that it might warn you of any possible regulatory pitfalls. Then, once you create a break timetable, share the schedule with everyone, emphasizing you'll hold them to their prescribed breaks so everyone knows who should be staffing the booth and when.

Even with a tightly run schedule, smoking breaks can eat up an hour or more of productivity daily, which might negatively affect others if the smokers take longer breaks than the rest. If this occurs, you might consider offering them – in concert with HR – help with a smoking-cessation program. Tell them you value their work, but the repeated smoke breaks demoralize others who have to cover for their job. You'll be giving them the kind of break that benefits not just them but also the entire team. E