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When Alex went on vacation, the last place he expected to be robbed was at work. Prior to his trip, Alex, who asked that his last name not be used, gave his team an 85-page PowerPoint presentation. But while he was away, his boss delivered the presentation to senior management as if it were her own.

“I've had it happen to me so many times in my career it's not even funny,” says Alex, 37, who now works for a marketing company in Calgary.

A recent Angus Reid public opinion survey of 367 Canadians employed in offices across the country conducted on behalf of OfficeTeam, a staffing agency, found that 58 per cent of respondents have had a co-worker take credit for their ideas. It is a problem that may be getting worse in today's cutthroat workplace, experts say. And it's one that is hard to prevent, but even harder to address after the fact.

“The economy is tough right now and people are afraid for their jobs. If the boss knows that you're doing a great job, then that might give you some measure of job security,” says Randall Craig, author of the career planning book Personal Balance Sheet . “The fact that it might be somebody else's job that you're doing, i.e. taking credit for other people's ideas, might be an indicator of just how concerned people are [about their jobs]. That doesn't make it right.”

But accusing a colleague of taking credit for your ideas may create more problems than it solves.

“You have to think about the politics of dealing with it,” says Hugh Gunz, chairman of the department of management at the University of Toronto Mississauga. “Whistle-blowers don't have a very good track record in terms of surviving the experience.”

For one, it can often be difficult to establish ownership of an idea. It could just be that a co-worker came up with the same idea on their own.

“It could be a misunderstanding,” says Dianne Hunnam-Jones, the Toronto district president of Robert Half International, whose companies include OfficeTeam. “You need to get to the bottom of it.”

Ms. Hunnam-Jones recommends talking to the co-worker in as tactfully a manner as possible before pointing fingers.

“Avoiding poisoning relationships is pretty important,” Mr. Craig says.

Indeed, making a fuss about a co-worker taking credit for your ideas could make you look like the bad guy, says Franke James, founder and editor of the Office-Politics website.

“You're seen as petty,” she says. “You've got to be the sort of person that is just so confident of your own intelligence and your abilities that you are actually open to inviting other people to help your idea to grow.”

Especially in office environments in which a premium is put on teamwork, making a stink about your ideas can lead others to believe you put yourself ahead of the group, Ms. James says.

Considering all the possible negative consequences of making an issue of a co-worker taking credit for others' ideas, it's no wonder so many people choose to ignore the matter. Of those people surveyed by Angus Reid who said they have had a co-worker take credit for their ideas, 41 per cent said they did nothing about it.

“A lot of the times I've just let it go,” Alex says.

Of course, some ideas are simply too important to let co-workers take credit for them.

“If you're not visible, people don't know that you're doing great work,” says Gerard Seijts, an associate professor of organizational behaviour at the University of Western Ontario's Richard Ivey School of Business.

If you do decide to make it known to a boss or a manager that an idea was yours, having evidence to prove your case is essential, Dr. Seijts says.

John, who did not want his last name used, was working in commercial real estate in Toronto two years ago when a superior claimed a lead on a sale that belonged to him.

Thankfully, John, 27, was able to present his boss with an e-mail proving the lead was his and his alone.

“It was completely rattling,” he says. “You think you're doing a good job and then all of a sudden someone tries to take the credit from you. At the end of the day, that's how you make your living and they're trying to take that away from you.”

The best way to deal with the problem is to not let it happen in the first place, experts say.

“If you don't want anybody stealing your ideas, taking credit for what you come up with, make sure you share your thoughts and ideas with your supervisor and people around you so everybody knows it's your idea,” Ms. Hunnam-Jones says.

Not everyone might be comfortable with that approach, but it is better than losing credit for your contributions.

“Some people might say you're engaging in power and politics. Of course you are. But if you're not visible, people don't care about you,” Dr. Seijts says.