Employer has Extended Garden Leave

slightlyconfused1

Hi Looking for opinions and advice.

My sister had been put on 3 months garden leave by her employer. She is retiring due to ill health. She had a complete breakdown caused by bullying and harrassment in the workplace. Her employers made the situation worse when she was on sick leave. She will never be able to work in her industry again (a lot of years training down the drain).

Her garden leave is due to finish at the end of Feb. Yesterday she receved a phone call saying that, if she agreed, they would extend her garden leave by one month.

She has no idea why they want to do this and is very suspicious as they have treated her so badly in the past. Another months pay would be great especially since her pension has not been sorted out yet (her employers took 2 months to submit her forms to the pension fund and her case missed the last meeting).

Does anyone have any idea why her employer would do this and will it have any nasty comebacks for her? We very much doubt they would do it out of the goodness of their heart. She really wants to accept the offer but is scared there may be comebacks.

All opinions and advice welcome.

lvm

Hello,

What is your sister's notice period? Am I right in saying she's been given 3 months garden leave already and they've offered a 4th? Have they confirmed this in writing?

I assume she resigned?

If her employer pay her the additional month over and above the 3 months and if the 3 months was her contractual notice it would indicate the 4th month is some sort of compensation and this would prove useful in an employment tribunal if she were to claim constructive dismissal as it appears they are compensating her for what she has gone through.

Would recommend getting this in writing though and making sure she's not on a couple of months sick pay then her standard notice...

Uncertain

She must be owed some holiday. Remember this continues to accrue all the time she was off sick and during her notice period / garden leave. Are you (is she) sure it is not this they are offering? If not, has the holiday been calculated correctly? She will have accrued just over six days holiday during the 3 months.

slightlyconfused1

Hi

Thanks for the replies

My sister has been on sick leave for about eight months now. She was put on garden leave just before she went on half pay. She has a letter stating when her garden leave starts and finishes. It doesn't give any restrictions although I know there are some implied in garden leave. They now want to extend the finish date by one month.

She was told in this phone call that her accrued annual leave would be paid in her final salary, at the end of the additional month. As far as I am aware she has not received anything in writing regarding this but the phonecall came from the HR officer who had been dealing with her retirement.

As far as I am aware she cannot go for constructive dismissal as she is too ill to do her job (even though it was their behaviour that caused the illness - she only told me some of it but it was a nightmare for her). Someone mentioned personal injury but at the moment I dont think she could cope with the stress.

I just keep looking for the negative aspect to this (who in this day and age pays an extra month's salary when they don't have to?) as she is relying on me to guide her and I really can't understand the motives here.

Gordon_Hose

Part of me thinks it's a good deal, an extra months pay can be handy.

Another part says if she doesn't agree, or thinks they are up to something, she should tell them she doesn't agree to the extension and they should let her go.

getmore4less

My guess*backed up by what you say) is that the pension is late and the payments won't start on time.

So to avoid a gap they are extending the garden leave in the hope it will be sorted by the end of March.

slightlyconfused1

Thanks again for the replies.

Her pension will be late but as the pension fund is independent of her employer she has been told they will backdate it to the date her employment ceased (if they approve it of course).

I really want to hope that this is all above board and she is getting something good for a change. I have not heard of anything like this before and was hoping someone else had experience of this type of thing. The money would come in really handy for her but she needs to be aware of any potential problems it could cause for her.