I think it‘s less about version control and more about that the change is then associated with the employees name and if something ever goes wrong, it would be possible (easy?) to blame him therefore he‘s being scared about doing something because it could cause trouble for him somewhen in the future.
And, imho, that goes back to not enough testing nd no safety nets to check for code errors (like code review, static analysis, ...).
Clearly I am living in a bubble, because I cannot imagine working somewhere where I would rather be seen doing literally nothing than to do the exact thing I was hired for.
And, imho, that goes back to not enough testing nd no safety nets to check for code errors (like code review, static analysis, ...).