What is gardening leave ? On first consideration, gardening leave seems a strange concept - forcing an employee to remain at home and do no work, often over an extended period of time (the employee's notice period). However, there are often good reasons for a employer to take this action, particularly :- given that client, suppliers, employees and confidential data are the lifeblood of most businesses if the employee is in a senior position and may be useful to a competitor an employee in a senior sales role, where there needs to be time for the employer to protect it's interests in cementing customer relationships with new sales staff Key legal considerations for gardening leave there is no common law right for an employer to keep an employee away from the workplace and without work, so contract provision is essential a clause simply stating that the employee can be required to remain at home and not given work rarely suffices - clauses which deal with the underlying reasons for the employer reaching that decision are generally also vital, including non-competition, non-poaching and so on the contract clause must be proportionate - as with other employment law clauses, unlike business to business contracts, where the courts will rarely interfere ...  Read the rest of the entry...