Whereas, according to the documentation, it should default to %FT%T. This is very easy to reproduce:
./bin/reframe --timestamp -l
stage directory: '/Users/karakasv/Repositories/reframe/stage'
output directory: '/Users/karakasv/Repositories/reframe/output'
./bin/reframe --timestamp=%T -l
stage directory: '/Users/karakasv/Repositories/reframe/stage/15:50:49'
output directory: '/Users/karakasv/Repositories/reframe/output/15:50:49'