I had a boss once who constantly watched the clock every minute on each employee. It was exhausting. Every morning she watched as our staff rolled into the office. I’d look at the clock, 8:00am, 8:15am and by 8:30 if everyone wasn’t there then I knew that I’d be getting questioned later as to why Employee X wasn’t in the office yet. It was over the top ridiculous.

One day she asked our facilities manager to print off a report that detailed the exact minute in which every employee scanned their key card to enter the building. She then spent a good hour highlighting the times in which the employee came in early and she used a thick orange highlighter when they came in past 8am. She handed the stack to my co-manager an I and told us we were to address it with each individual person.

Upon further review, I grabbed both stacks and tossed them in the recycle bin. Now, was it the right thing to do after my boss just gave me a task? Yes. It was.

Watching the clocks on adult employees is the worst thing you can do. Everyone is paid to do a job. If they do it, great. If not, you fire them. If they can’t do the job in 40 hours then address it but watching the minutiae of every single task is meaningless and you send the wrong message to your staff.

Focus on what’s important on the job, I promise you, the clock is not.