Gardening Leave

dragondancer_2

Unfortunately i have now been put at risk of redundancy , i should find out this week if i am being selected or not.

The contract I work on finishes at the end of May and no new work is being sent our way. There is another much smaller contract continuing but doesnt even need one full time person to do the work and can be covered by the remaining staff.

One of the things they are talking about is gardening leave for June during which I must be available - if needed - to come into the office. What they are saying is that, they will give us "reasonable" notice to come in, basically the day before ie they can phone Monday afternoon and we must be in first thing Tuesday morning. If we want to go on holiday, even for just a long weekend we MUST use our holiday entitlement.

Is this right, are there official guidlines or is it down to each company? Even though we will be officially ex employees at the end of June they can still keep us on such a short leash? To my mind less than a full days notice ie call on Monday and be in Wednesday - is unreasonable. we will be basically in limbo, neither unable to enjoy the time of as we cant officially go anywhere or make plans as we will be at short notice recall.

MoneyMate

Hi hope all goes well for you , every time I've had colleagues put on Gardening leave there is always potential business at risk if the person in question had access to company computers or contact information.

Was used on a regular basis at one time, hope all sorts itself out in you favour .

nearlyrich

They can ask you to work whilst they are paying you and you are on Garden Leave I have seen many people out on garden leave in my career and I have never seen one of them called in but they can if they want.

arbroath_lass

Seems reasonable - they are paying you to be available for work. They could tell you to come in and have you sitting doing nothing all day.


Why would you need more notice?

getmore4less

Full contractual obligations till you are terminated so reasonable to expect you to be available for the normal days and if you don't want to be available take holiday as you would do normally.


Depends how tight you want to leave the get back to work if you do go away without notifying them.

Eg, if not called by say 6pm Thurs you have Friday free.

are you normally contactable at the weekend?

If not then unless they call Friday Monday is Free.

The obvious thing to be doing is looking for work, and if you get a job look at counter notice(research it on the web there are strict rules).

LittleVoice

dragondancer wrote: »

Unfortunately i have now been put at risk of redundancy , i should find out this week if i am being selected or not.

The contract I work on finishes at the end of May and no new work is being sent our way. There is another much smaller contract continuing but doesnt even need one full time person to do the work and can be covered by the remaining staff.

One of the things they are talking about is gardening leave for June during which I must be available - if needed - to come into the office. What they are saying is that, they will give us "reasonable" notice to come in, basically the day before ie they can phone Monday afternoon and we must be in first thing Tuesday morning. If we want to go on holiday, even for just a long weekend we MUST use our holiday entitlement.

Is this right, are there official guidlines or is it down to each company? Even though we will be officially ex employees at the end of June they can still keep us on such a short leash? To my mind less than a full days notice ie call on Monday and be in Wednesday - is unreasonable. we will be basically in limbo, neither unable to enjoy the time of as we cant officially go anywhere or make plans as we will be at short notice recall.

The contract which your company has ends at the end of May but, as you say, you would not be an "ex employee" until a month later.

How long have you worked for the organisation? What amount of notice are you entitled to?

dragondancer_2

arbroath_lass wrote: »

Why would you need more notice?

so I could properly prepare to get on with the next stage of my life and not feel like a dog that can be called back to his masters heel at short notice?

arbroath_lass

dragondancer wrote: »

so I could properly prepare to get on with the next stage of my life and not feel like a dog that can be called back to his masters heel at short notice?

You can get on with the next stage of your life once you are no longer employed by them. You are being paid to be available. If you don't want to be available book leave or hand in your notice now.

dragondancer_2

LittleVoice wrote: »

The contract which your company has ends at the end of May but, as you say, you would not be an "ex employee" until a month later.

How long have you worked for the organisation? What amount of notice are you entitled to?

They have confirmed today I am out

Ive got 9 years and its supposed to be 10 weeks notice - they have talked about payment in lieu as well as the redundancy payment because its not going to be the full 10 weeks.

Its just going to be really weird the next few weeks. all folk are doing is talking about this and I suppose like me, just want it over.

Ive got a couple of nibbles off two agencies ( I would love to think they have improved from the last time I was looking but I dont think so based on the initial conversations ) Best case i get the money, a couple of weeks away to properly relax and then walk into a new job.

nearly rich - I have admin access on a few systems, so if i wanted, i could create a right mess. nothing irreversible but it would take time to correct ( not that i would do it )

getmore4less

Are you close to another year?

If there are no potentially suitable alternatives focus on the package and make sure they get it right, service for redundancy notice and accrued unused holidays.

Are you still consulting or have they put you on notice?
How many are effected have they got the consultation period correct?

read up about counternotice in case they don't do PILON

what help are they going to provide, outsource, CV, use of work facilities phones etc. get as much as you can.


Some sectors like IT have been buoyant for over a year so finding work may not be as bad as you think, even look at contract for a while(if your sector has that) and make some dosh.