Step 1:

·       The employee will make contact with you as the manager, requesting to carry over up to a week’s worth of contracted hours into the 2026/27 annual leave year, being very clear of their reason(s) for doing so. 

·       Please note we are expecting staff to have taken their full annual leave entitlement by the end of the holiday year, so requests of this nature will be the exception, not the norm.

Step 2:

·       The manager must check that there is sufficient balance before they consider the request and decide whether to approve or not approve.

·       If the manager decides not to approve the request, they will need to notify the staff member and ensure they plan and book this leave within the remaining annual leave year period.

·       If the manager approves the request, the manager must complete the attached Carry Over Request form with all the required information in columns A to H (if information is missing, it cannot be considered).  As this form enables you to capture multiple people, you may want to submit this completed form once all your staff details are known.

·       The manager will need to email the completed Carry Over Request form to the Divisional PA(s) for DMT to review and decide whether to approve or not approve.  The email address is: Please contact your HRBP and they will advise

Step 3:

·       The Divisional Management Team will review the request(s).  This will normally take place at the weekly DMT meetings.

·       The Divisional PA(s) will email the Healthroster team healthroster@esneft.zohodesk.eu and copy in the manager the completed form which captures the DMT’s decisions. 

Step 4:

·       The Healthroster team will double check the leave entries and the balance is sufficient for the request and on 1 April 2026 the approved requests will be uploaded to to ESR and fed into the HealthRoster system  

·       The manager is required to notify the staff member(s) of the outcome.  Please note, if the decision was ‘not approved’, the manager must make the necessary steps with the staff member(s) to ensure the outstanding leave is planned and booked by the end of the annual leave year.

Some important additional information where you are not required to complete the Carry Over Request form as the Healthroster team will automatically process (this will not commence until after 1^st April 2026):

Maternity Leave:

The Healthroster team will automatically carry over the full accrued annual leave entitlement from this annual leave year into the 2026/27 annual leave year. 

Long Term Sickness:

If an employee is unable to take accrued leave due to long term sick leave, leave up to the statutory entitlement, 20 days, may be carried forward to the next leave year.  We have applied the criteria that, if a member of staff is on long term sickness (4 weeks +) at the end of the annual leave year (31st March 2026), then the Healthroster team will automatically carry over the statutory annual leave into the 2026/27 annual leave year.  This also applies to staff that have returned from a long term sickness period within the last quarter (January to March 2026) and have not been in the position to take the statutory entitlement. 

Finally, whilst the deadline for staff to submit a request in exceptional circumstances is by the 31^st January 2026, I would encourage you to ensure your staff complete this process timely as should the request not be approved, it will allow good time to ensure that leave is planned and booked within this current annual leave year period.