[Porsche-O-Phile]

What kind of business environment are you fostering if your people feel the need to have to B.S. about 13 minutes worth of time in the morning or whatever?

In most businesses (not all, but most), it ultimately doesn't matter if a person shows up a little bit early or a little bit late. In my experience if you treat people like professionals, they will act like it in return. If they're a few minutes late, they'll often stay a few minutes late to give an honest day - or report their time honestly. Not all, but most.

Using a time clock is one of the most degrading and confrontational gestures an employer can make, IMHO. It says "I don't trust you" and simultaneously "you're only as good/important as the minutes you're here". Perhaps I'm too trusting, but I tend to tell people that they're professionals and I am extending them professional trust, and that I expect them to conduct themselves accordingly and not to do anything that would ever betray that.

That said, in some certain businesses it's appropriate, but I've never worked at a place where you were required to punch a clock without this constant feeling that one was just chattel to the company in the back of one's mind. It sets the stage for a confrontational management/employee relationship, IMO. Some examples:

A few years ago I worked flying cargo for a local freight outfit. Although I was considered and called a "professional pilot", I was required to clock in. Company's justification was that they needed to document any potential problems with the flight crews if a flight ever got off late (we were carrying highly time-critical stuff like organs for transplant, bank transfers, "top tier" overnight courier materials, etc.) As a professional charged with that responsibility, you "get it". You know you need to leave adequate time to get weather, preflight, file with ATC, get the aircraft fueled and loaded, etc. The fact that you had to punch a clock like some McDonald's employee never sat well with the crews (including me). There was a LOT of bad blood between the pilots and the company here. One of the reasons I left. A guy I worked with was actually written up for clocking in ONE MINUTE late. That stays on his pilot file forever, even though his flight got off on time without problem.

While I (and the others) certainly understood the need for enforcing an appreciation for time sensitivity in that particular line of work, I always felt like there was an underlying attitude by the company that the "professionals" they were employing somehow couldn't be trusted to get their flights off on time, even though they were being trusted with their own airplanes and shipments of valuable items (including cash for ATMs, etc. on some occasions). Very weird situation. It never sat well with me and was corrosive to the working environment.

Contrast that to my current job in an architectural office where I am a "design professional". There are some days I'm there early and some days I'm there late. I (and my co-workers) ALWAYS report an honest day's billable hours on the sheets (which are for bookkeeping and client billing, not a "time clock" per se). While we are paid overtime and have certainly availed ourselves of it in the past where appropriate, there are plenty of times we've given the firm (and clients, by extension) freebies by staying late because "getting this out today" or whatever was the professionally appropriate thing to do. Cost of doing business, IMHO. Big picture.

Point is, if you make people punch a clock, there's an automatic assumption that you don't trust them and they'll feel less remorse about trying to circumvent it. If not and you tell people that you're trusting them at their words to conduct themselves in a professional manner and to do whatever it takes to get the job/mission done, they respond. I believe in telling people that they are entrusted with the reputation of the company (plus their own), and to not abuse that trust. It tends to work. Even so, I'd certainly keep an eye on people to make sure you don't have one of the rare ones that would abuse the privilege, but I think the attitude counts for a lot. . . If you're concerned about fostering an open workplace environment.