Gardening Leave. MarketCheese

Gardening Leave — is a practice when the employee is announced about the leave but continues to be on payroll and receives the salary without a presence at the workplace. Such a practice is common in the United Kingdom and Australia. In the U.S.A. this practice is named administrative leave.

What is Gardening Leave

Another name of this practice is garden leave. The gardening leave is applied when the risk is that an employee will go to the competitors and disclose the confidential data. Gardening leave is applied in case of an internal probe, temporary absence of tasks, or protection from public disclosure. During this time, the only thing that an employee can do is work in the garden, that’s where this name had come from. Gardening leave was shown on TV in the series “Yes, Prime Minister” in 1986.

Gardening leave is applied during the departure of the senior executives who have access to the major part of confidential information. This measure is aimed to protect the company during the period when the employee leaves the current job but doesn’t yet conclude the new employment agreement.

Why companies use the gardening leave:

Privacy and security. The company wants to protect confidential information from disclosure.
Professional preference. The company doesn’t want the employee to start work at the new job during the notice period.
Contract clause. Sometimes, gardening leave is indicated in the employment agreement for the post-termination period.

As for the employee, they continue to receive their salary and statutory benefits like parental leave or sick leave. They are just restricted from entering the office, their security badge becomes invalid. Usually, the gardening leave lasts between one or twelve weeks.

This practice should be applied when the company can pay the necessary benefits. If the company wants to protect its interests, its jurists should draw up a contract to secure both the interests of the company and the employee.

The employee shouldn’t be impaired in their rights. Otherwise, they can sue the company. Also, the employee may refuse the gardening leave, but most don’t. They see this period as the time when they can pay attention to their hobbies or relax.

The company should take the necessary precautionary measures to avoid the disclosure of sensitive information. It is necessary to check the security system on the computers for vulnerabilities. Also, the company should instruct the members of other departments on what they should do to avoid the accidental transmission of sensitive information.

Application of Gardening Leave

The practice of gardening leave has both positive and negative sides. This measure should be applied intelligently to avoid negative consequences.

Pros and cons of gardening leave:

Pros	Cons
Protection of confidential information, client base, or goodwill	Risk of lawsuits
Protection from the employee’s mischief	Negative impact on reputation among the other employees
Preventing labor pirating by the employee	High payments for social securities
Preparation of the workplace for the new employee	Idle hour due to lack of personnel

As we see, the gardening leave should be used only when there is a specific clause in a contract and only in case of proven irregularities of the employee. Otherwise, it may look like discrimination or hindering the work.

To avoid possible disclosure, the company should create a proper system of information security and access to confidential documents. Unauthorized access to information is possible in any system: from small organizations to large government agencies. Careful attention to the protection of information, and the creation of information security units can minimize losses and prevent attempts to steal or copy data. Special attention should be paid to the work of authorized employees who have access to critical information. Protective measures should be taken in advance because to give up the initiative is to allow data loss.

Measures to protect the confidential information in case of gardening leave:

The employees should sign the non-disclosure agreement upon the job placement.
The confidential documents should have a multilevel system of access and be secured by a password.
Establish clear rules and regulations for working with information and set penalties for violating them.
Protect information from unauthorized access using special hardware and software.
Separate access levels for employees so that certain information is available only to a narrow circle of individuals.
Apply the systems of information encryption.
Conduct the data access audit to identify possible vulnerabilities.
Use antivirus programs to protect the system from malware.
Restrict access to certain sites.
If the organization has a local network, install the firewall.

Remember that no software solution completely protects information. It blocks some attacks, but leaves room for others., You need to select several software tools and build a complex where each tool “covers the rear” of the other to build an effective information security system. Only in this case, your information will be completely protected.