Rights of an employee when giving leaving notice & "Garden Leave"

Just a case for a friend of mine who has just offered her resignation in her job.

My wife used to work for this company and some of the stories I have heard about the way these people treat their employees are astounding. When employees announce they are leaving they are either shown the door straight away or treated like scum for the remainder of their stay.

Basically this person (who is a sales person) has been told to sit in a boardroom for a month with no computer and told to do nothing. Sounds like a dream for some, but you can bet your bum that they will make things as difficult as possible for her. I know they use mental torture (shout at employees, degrade them) and cases have been taken and won against them before. Just wanted to know if they are actually allowed to just leave a person stuck in a boardroom for a month or has the person some sort of recourse (considering they are employed as a sales person, not a doormat).

Also I know somebody else who works there who is upset that they have it in their contract that they cannot work for a competitor if they leave for 1 year. How can this be legal. For me it just looks like another bully boy tactic of these animals in trying to frighten staff into staying at the company.

I mean if they have this "1 year" garden leave rule, surely they are expected to pay for this leave (otherwise how is a professional sales person supposed to make a living!). Is there a term in which an unpaid garden leave would be relevant.

Re sitting in a room or packing things into a brown box and shown the door - no real difference I'm afraid, tell your friend to bring in an Ipod etc.


Re not being allowed to work fora competitor for a year - thats answered elsewhere and much better by others on this site. But off the top of my head, I don't believe it holds any weight - but don't expect a reference to go to a competitior !

Sounds very strange - Can she bring in her own laptop to work on (not connected to the company network)? What happens if she just walks out?

Jeez thats kinda mad. Tell her to bring in loads of books, mags, food etc

Make herself comfortable.

I find this whole practice mad, I mean I guess the reasoning behind it is so that they can't access customer accounts etc and pass them onto a competitor etc but if a person was going to do this they would have done before handing in notice!

If the company does not want to give a free months holidays to sales people who resign and does not trust them to continue their job until their end date, the should offer unpaid leave for the notice period. If the person does not want the unpaid leave, they can't really complain if they are put in the boardroom. Lots of creative things to have them doing, like a competitor analysis.

I was on paid garden leave last year for a month but I was at home. I have never heard of anyone being told to stay in a room for a month and do nothing, and would probably laugh in the face of anyone who said that to me. As I assume its not specified in their contract that garden leave time must be spent on-site in a room, then its not on. Tell your friend to stand up to them....

Is she on commission? If they are preventing her selling they are preventing her earning commission...

That sounds mad, She should start a distance learning course, plenty time to study !

Has the world gone a bit more crazy ?

Why is your friend putting up with this ?

InReality said:

Has the world gone a bit more crazy ?

Why is your friend putting up with this ?

Click to expand...

Suppose they need the month income. If they just walked away Im not sure if they would be entitled to it unless they had legal grounds to cry "unfair dismissal" or something like that.

I think its awful that people are allowed, legally, to treat employees with such disdain (they are particularly nasty in that they usually look for holes in the system for them to treat leavers badly!).

We all need the month's income. There has to be some way around this though.

InReality said:

We all need the month's income. There has to be some way around this though.

Click to expand...

I know its awful . . .

I did hear that they may be putting to her some good use (she hammered something out with them and got her lawyer involved today!), so it looks like she will be ok. Still a bit shtty!!

Tell her to bring in a sleeping bag or airbed or something. If they did that to me, I would make them regret it.

Smashbox said:

Tell her to bring in a sleeping bag or airbed or something.

Click to expand...

And pass through reception regularly in your jammies and bed-hair while going to the loo.

Nice idea complainer!

Complainer said:

And pass through reception regularly in your jammies and bed-hair while going to the loo.

Click to expand...

Not sure her solicitor mentioned that one, but will definantly suggest it . .

NorthDrum said:

Basically this person (who is a sales person) has been told to sit in a boardroom for a month with no computer and told to do nothing.

Click to expand...

Almost certainly, a court would consider this a constructive dismissal.

Eblanoid said:

Almost certainly, a court would consider this a constructive dismissal.

Click to expand...

Is this relevant, given that she's already resigned?