Are you sure the working relationship with the people "this" has backfired with wouldn't be strained anyway, even without the loose rules? I'm fully aware ther

Are you sure the working relationship with the people "this" has backfired with wouldn't be strained anyway, even without the loose rules? I'm fully aware there are people who are "smart" but don't "get things done". However (though I am lacking any rigorous data to back this up) my suspicion is that people in this category who are prone towards taking advantage of employers are going to do so no matter what and being lax about strict attendance rules won't have a substantial impact on it. IOW, just because they are (forced to be) present from 9am-5pm or whatever the defined working hours are doesn't mean they won't spend most of that time fucking off on reddit on their personal cellphone or whatever and they would have been problem employees whether or not the rules were loose -- if anything I suspect having loose rules makes it easier to identify when someone is not pulling their weight because there's a lot of ways to appear really busy to others while doing nothing when you're actually physically present.