Garden leave, a viable 'leaver' option?

Last week I looked at counter offers and mentioned that I would look at garden leave* this week. It was shown that counter offers are the wrong way to go and I said that this option might be the answer.

If we assume that you have now accepted that your valuable member of staff is leaving you have to ask yourself about vulnerability. Could your leaver spread dissatisfaction among other staff? Are they likely to mention it to clients or suppliers? Could this damage your relationship with external markets? Worse still, is it possible that the leaver could take, off site, details of clients and suppliers to use elsewhere, either with their next employer or on a self employed basis? Taking away your business.

It is not unusual for people in sales positions, customer service or buying and procurement to have money paid in lieu of notice and this practice has been used regularly, provided that the contracts permit it. If you can get your contracts to specify the use of garden leave then this can be more helpful.

Once an employee, a leaver, is on garden leave you can look for their replacement. They remain available to come in for essential work and to then have a hand over with the eventual new employee, assuming they are in place in time. An alternative could be that you could get them to use the time at home to write up user manuals, outlining the work they do for a new employee to help them when they take over the position.

During the time of garden leave the employee is not free to start a new position or take any work elsewhere so they should always be available to come on the premises for essential work. This method keeps a valuable resource on tap whilst maintaining the morale of the rest of the staff and allows the opportunity of a handover later.

I would always use garden leave with my own staff having previously always paid money in lieu of notice because it allows more flexibility. Watch out for next week's article as it will take on another very important issue within staffing, company culture and recruitment.

* Garden leave is where the employee is paid throughout their notice, including benefits, but are only on the premises when they are invited back for meetings, training or hand overs. I am not an employment law expert so please ensure that if you use this option that your contracts with staff allow its use. If it is not in the contract you could find yourself being found in breach of contract by the employment courts. Always take legal advice.