Notice to Place Employee on Garden Leave

This document can be used by an employer in Great Britain, to notify an employee that they are going to be placed on garden leave.

Garden leave refers to the situation where an employer sends an employee home on full pay during their notice period*.

An employee's notice period is the amount of time an employee has to work for their employer after they resign or after the employer terminates the contract of employment (e.g. by reason of redundancy).

An employer will commonly place an employee on garden leave in order to protect the employer's confidential information and/or to prevent the employee from poaching clients, customers or suppliers of the employer. Typically, there will be two ways in which an employee may be placed on garden leave:

• An employee can be placed on garden leave where the employee's contract of employment contains express clauses which permit this (garden leave clauses).
• In the absence of an express clause, the employer and the employee may agree between them that the employee will go on garden leave.

This letter may be used in either of the above situations. In the case of the second option, specific terms and conditions will be included as part of the notice in the form of a deed of agreement.

Generally speaking, in the absence of an express garden leave clause or an agreement with the employee, it would be difficult for the employer to insist that the employee must be placed on garden leave.

How to use this document

This document should be completed with the relevant information about the garden leave proposals.

If the employee's contract of employment contains the relevant authority to place the employee on garden leave, the letter can simply be signed and sent to the employee. Usually, this type of letter will be handed to the employee in person.

If the employee's contract of employment does not contain the relevant authority to place the employee on garden leave, then a deed of agreement will be attached to the letter. The deed of agreement will contain the relevant proposed terms and conditions of the employee's garden leave. The letter and deed should be signed by the employer before it is handed to the employee for their signature. A deed must be executed in a particular way by both parties. The employer will need to ensure the employee is given sufficient opportunity to read, consider and agree to the terms before the period of garden leave may commence.

The document will not be reviewed by a lawyer to ensure that the legal content applies to the personal situation of the parties. In order to review the particulars of any final agreement, it will be necessary to instruct a lawyer. For assistance finalising, reviewing and executing a deed, advice should be sought from a lawyer who is regulated by an approved regulator in the legal services sector. It is possible to search for a lawyer using the Law Society (England) or Law Society (Scotland) search function.

Relevant law

The terms and conditions of garden leave will be governed by a contractual agreement. Therefore, the general laws of contract will apply.

The Employment Rights Act 1996 is one of the key legal provisions which governs the rights of employees. These provisions should be observed and considered by the employer.

Help from a lawyer

You can choose to consult a lawyer if you need help.

The lawyer can answer your questions or help you through the process. You will be offered this option when you complete the document.

How to modify the template

You fill out a form. The document is created before your eyes as you respond to the questions.

At the end, you receive it in Word and PDF formats. You can modify it and reuse it.