Garden Leave

Garden leave is an arrangement in which an employee who has resigned, or been given notice, is kept on the payroll for a period but required to stay away from the workplace and their normal duties. They remain formally employed — receiving salary and bound by their contractual obligations — but do not actually work, and are usually barred from accessing systems, clients, and colleagues. The name captures the idea of the employee being at home, notionally tending the garden, while their notice runs down.

The purpose is protective. When a departing employee has access to sensitive information, key client relationships, or an in-flight strategy, letting them work their full notice at their desk can be risky, particularly if they are heading to a competitor. Garden leave puts distance between the employee and that information while the clock runs: it keeps them out of live decisions, lets their knowledge age, and preserves handover integrity, all without releasing them to start elsewhere. Because they remain employed and paid, they also remain subject to duties of confidentiality and, often, restrictions that a fully departed ex-employee might contest more easily.

Garden leave is most common at senior levels and in roles with significant access to confidential or client-sensitive work, and its use varies with contract terms and jurisdiction. In the Indian context it interacts with notice periods and, for the hiring employer, with joining timelines — a candidate placed on garden leave for the length of a long notice cannot start until it ends, unless a buyout or negotiated early release is agreed. For employers and candidates alike, understanding whether a role carries garden-leave provisions matters both to protecting the outgoing business and to planning a realistic start date.