When a vm in VMware Workstation starts booting, you can hit F2 to enter a virtual BIOS.
By default, I think the system time is synchronized with the host clock.
If you change the system time, what have you done?
If you totally close VMware Workstation, there's no "CMOS battery" continuing to tick to set the time forward.
Are you saving an "offset" versus for host clock, maybe?
EDIT: Creating a new VM with no OS, starting and rebooting makes no change to the .nvram file. Entering its BIOS and setting the clock 1 hour forward changes the .nvram file at offsets: 0x14 (c7c0 --> d5d0); 0x24 (c7c0 --> d5d0). Entering its BIOS and setting the clock 1 hour back changes the .nvram file at those offsets back to their original values. C7C0 is 51136, and D5D0 is 54736. Difference is 3,600. (Which is how many seconds are in an hour.) I have to assume these 2 bytes are part of a larger piece of data. The 8 bytes before these 2 bytes is "6974416d00040000", and the 8 bytes after at the first location is "ffff4d43534f6974" and "ffffffffffff4d43", respectively. The time these files were written was 6/28/2015 5:50 PM (UTC-4), and I can't see how these hex numbers correspond either with time of day (51136, if assumed on a 86400 scale corresponds to 14:12:16, and 54736 to 15:12:16) or an epoch timestamp.
