When key employees leave your organisation, it can put your business at risk if confidential data also walks out the door with them. Global Investigations provides professional garden leave investigation services to protect your interests when employees go on garden leave.
Garden leave, or gardening leave describes a situation whereby an employee leaving a job is instructed to stay away from work during the notice period, while still remaining on the payroll.
This practice is often used to prevent an employee from taking sensitive information when they leave their current employer. Garden leave helps employers to protect their business interests.
Placing an employee on garden leave in the UK often involves asking the employee to:
> Refrain from any service for the company
> Not to attend the business premises
> Not to use company equipment
> Refrain from business contact with clients, suppliers, and employees.
Garden leave reduces an employer’s risk of losing clients, colleagues, useful information, or a combination of the above to competitors, which can translate into a significant loss of income for businesses.
At Global, our private investigators are often asked to intervene and assist employers in making covert and overt checks into the validity for gardening and leave absence.
Who Might Need Garden Leave Investigations?
Garden leave investigations are most commonly utilised when valued employees in sensitive roles are leaving your organisation. These can include:
> Directors, partners, board members and executives
> Sales staff with access to client data
> Technical/IT staff with system access
> R&D, product development or IP-related roles
> Client services with access to accounts
> Finance staff with financial data access
Essentially any employee with inside information that could damage your firm if shared with competitors or abused after their departure. A garden leave investigation ensures they adhere to their restrictive covenants and confidentiality clauses.
Our professional private investigators discreetly monitor relevant employees throughout garden leave periods to prevent data theft, client poaching, intellectual property loss or other violations. We help mitigate risks.
How Do Garden Leave Investigations Work?
When an employee goes on garden leave, our expert investigators immediately open an in-depth case, gathering background details on their role, access, clients, responsibilities and more. We determine vulnerabilities and risks should that intel get out.
We then legally monitor all relevant digital communications and online behaviours using ethical surveillance techniques during garden leave:
> Email, messaging, phone calls
> Website access patterns
> External storage usage
> Social media activity
> Travel locations via mobile
Physical surveillance is also conducted for in-person meetings, events, etc. that could involve improper sharing of data after departure. Sophisticated computer forensics ensures no data theft.
Why Trust Global Investigations for Garden Leave Investigations?
With decades of experience dealing with hundreds of garden leave cases, our professional investigative team understands all the ways departing employees can damage and undermine their former employers. We stay on guard.
Our combination of human intelligence and tech surveillance capabilities allows us to monitor garden leave employees across digital and physical channels. Analysis from our in-house cybersecurity specialists ensures quick response to information security threats.
Global Investigations also stands out with our global connections that allow our investigators to legally access records and make enquiries others cannot. Our discretion and ethical approach give clients confidence while protecting employee reputations unless misconduct is confirmed.
Intellectual Property & Data Protection
For departing personnel in R&D, product development, operations and technology, unauthorised sharing of patents, designs, source code, processes or other IP can destroy competitive advantage. Our investigations specifically monitor and analyse data flows to ensure protection.
Client Poaching Prevention
Sales professionals often attempt to divert key accounts and contacts to their next organisation. We watch communication patterns with former clients to detect contract interference and preserve relationships.
Reputational Risk Mitigation
Executive-level departures can damage perception, stock price and more if not handled properly. We help create narratives and monitor media channels to manage public messaging and negate viral crises.
Garden Leave Investigations FAQs
It is an investigation focused on monitoring key employees who have left the organisation but are still legally bound by non-compete, non-disclosure agreements during garden leave periods, ensuring no violations.
We legally monitor phone calls, computer activity, external devices, emails, travel/meetings and all digital communications of garden leave employees using ethical surveillance techniques.
Our investigators can monitor all digital activity, communication channels, data copying and physical meetings to detect leakages of confidential data, intellectual property or contact interference post-employment.
By analysing communication records and contact databases, we can detect attempts to divert clients to new employers and intervene with counter-offers and legal action to restrict access to privileged information.
Our investigations minimise potential compliance issues, leaks of trade secrets, reputational damages, loss of security-cleared personnel, and loss of corporate partners in addition to stopping client poaching.
Contact Global Investigations today for professional garden leave investigations that ensure your interests are protected when employees depart your organisation.
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