Garden Leave Longer Than Notice Period

Parties can agree on a notice period longer than the statutory one.

Garden leave longer than notice period. A court is only likely to enforce garden leave for as long as it is necessary to protect the legitimate interests of the employer. Instead, the employee is paid their full salary to stay at home. If an employee resigns, an employer might want to use garden leave for their notice period for a variety of reasons, for example, the employee:

How much notice you must give will usually be stated in your contract. If your employer tells you not to work in your notice period. Your employer can request you refrain from getting in touch with their clients, customers, suppliers, or contacts without their prior consent.

If your contract doesn’t specify a notice period for when you resign, you’ll need to serve a statutory notice period like this: This is where the employee is not required to attend the workplace, although they remain an employee until their last day of employment. Statutory right to pay in lieu of notice or garden leave.

Gardening leave is often used by employers wanting to protect themselves against competition or poaching of customers, clients, or staff by an employee. Garden leave during employee notice periods. You still get the same redundancy pay.

For example, if you are placed on garden leave during your 3 month notice period, and you had restrictive covenants which prohibited you from approaching past clients for six months after you have left your employer’s business, the restrictive covenants would be reduced by the 3 months that you had already spent on garden leave. You will usually be required to work during your notice period. One month or more worked = one week’s notice;

The employer may offer payment instead of notice for that period. When you are at the interview stage, it is very important to be honest about your notice period and not to make false promises that you can start on a certain date, when in reality you are not 100% sure. Putting you on garden leave takes you out of the equation for the period of your notice which means you cannot contact clients or colleagues for that period.