Garden leave

How it works

If you want it, pay for it and write it. You cannot send someone home unpaid and call it garden leave. Confidentiality still binds. Non-competes still face PH enforceability limits. For a U.S. company hiring one Filipino teammate, write this into the brief, the employment contract, and the peso payroll file before the start date. Slack habits do not override the Labor Code, BIR, or NPC. If the local employer of record holds the paper, they run the statutory step; you still owe a clean operating definition so the seat does not fail in week three. Put a number on the example when you budget loaded cost, because a nameless allowance always returns as a December surprise or a missed SLA.

Example: resigns 1 April, you pay 1-30 April off tools so they do not take the inbox to a rival. Lawful if paid. Unpaid ‘garden’ is a float.

How it differs

Floating status is different and narrower. Resignation notice is the worker’s 30 days.

Common errors

Unpaid bench time branded as British HR.

In practice

Treat Garden leave as a week-one operating object. Ask who signs the notice, who remits, and who would answer DOLE. If three vendors each point at the other, you have a story rather than a file. Write an owner - founder, local employer, or worker - and a date you will look at it again: first cutoff, first holiday, or first miss. If nobody can show a contract clause, a payslip line, a calendar block, or a checklist box, you do not have garden leave yet. You have a conversation. Convert the conversation before the person starts, while changing the deal still costs a paragraph rather than a resignation. Re-read the worked example above against the actual hire in front of you. If the numbers in that example cannot be swapped for this seat’s pesos, hours, and start date, the brief is still unfinished.