Friday, June 20, 2008

Garden Leave - When to Use

Following up on my , let us go over when to use a gardening leave clause. I read the materials available on garden leave as presupposing a salaried or hourly employer rather than a person paid on commission. Take for an example Gardening leave from Biocrawler:
"For example, the term is frequently used in Formula One motor racing to describe what happens when valued techical (sic) staff choose to move between teams. In an attempt to protect proprietary information about performance and design from falling into competitors hands the engineer in question is placed on gardening leave, sometimes for many months, to ensure that when he is finally able to join his new employer his knowledge is no longer current."
How else would employer or employee know what the first was to pay to the other during the garden leave without a set pay such as a salary? Therefore, positions paying only on a commission basis should find garden leave useless. Non-compete agreements remain the only comparable solution for sales people and others paid solely on a commission.


  1. Nice post... Garden leaves are very important in industries where there is intense competition... is there a max number of years that it can be implemented?

  2. Unlike a non-compete agreement, garden leave does not extend for years. The contract sets out how long the period is but what I am seeing is between 90 days and six months.