Report your absence from work (EARL)

All employees of Fraser Health including front line staff, managers, directors and executive.

Call EARL to report:

• Unexpected absences due to illness, injury or other reasons
• Preplanned absences (up to five days in advance)
• Missing a partial shift
• An update to your absence status

Do not call EARL for:

• Preplanned leave of absence
• Preplanned vacations

EARL is an absence notification system.  

You, your manager and/or director and possibly other members of your department (as identified by your manager or director) will receive an email notification when you call EARL. 

Notifying your manager/supervisor/department of your absence as soon as possible is important as it allows them to take the required steps to find a replacement.

If you enter that you expect to be off work for more than five shifts, the Absence and Disability Management (ADM) team will also be notified. The ADM team is in place to support employees who are off work due to illness or injury. This information will assist them in determining if/when it is time to contact you to see if you need help or support.

If you anticipate being absent for more than five shifts, please check your Fraser Health email as the ADM team may send you important absence related information.

You can access your email remotely on desktop or mobile by visiting owa.fraserhealth.ca (to log in enter SFHR\username i.e. SFHR\MCameron and your password). 

You can call EARL to report any absence related to illness, injury and other leaves such as compassionate and special leave; unplanned and planned (e.g. surgery) medical leaves. Calls can be logged up to five days in advance of the first missed shift. You should not use EARL to report a planned leave of absence. 

You will be asked to enter your employee ID number.

You will be prompted to answer a few questions before being transferred to your unit/department phone number.

You can dial ‘0’ to speak with a live operator at anytime. 

You can select from one of the following reasons for absence:  

• Personal illness (includes an illness as well as injuries which did not occur in the workplace)
• Injury at work
• Other unplanned absences (includes special leaves, compassionate leave and other situations)
• Pre-planned (e.g. pre-planned surgeries and medical/dental appointments that will take one shift or more.)

In addition to your basic information (name, site, department, position and reason for your absence) you will be prompted to answer the following new questions:

1. The actual number of shifts that you expect to miss.
2. Your anticipated return to work date (if you expect to miss more than five shifts). 

You MUST speak with your manager/supervisor/charge nurse/patient care coordinator or other designate or your absence may be recorded as a ‘no show’. If you are unable to speak to someone or leave a voicemail message when the call is transferred, please hang up and call your department directly. 

Dial ‘0’ and speak with the live operator. Tell them the correct department you are scheduled to work for the shift you will be absent from. Your position, department and location information is taken from the Meditech human resources system. Upon your return to work, advise your manager if any updates are required to your information. 

There will be an option to choose the worksite depending on your secondary job and/or ESP schedule. If you are scheduled to work in a different department or different worksite from what is recognized, dial ‘0’ and identify to the live operator the department (unit) you are scheduled to work at. If the absence is multiple days AND effects two different sites/departments, you need to make a separate call for each.

After you receive a confirmation number, your call is transferred to your department. The transfer can take up to 10 seconds and you may not hear any sound; do not hang up, your call is being transferred in the background. If possible, leave a voicemail message to verbally identify that you will be absent. If you are unable to leave a voicemail message, hang up and call your unit or department directly. You need to verbally speak with someone or leave a message with your absence details or your absence may be recorded as a ‘no show’. 

You are required to call EARL to provide an update to your absence information.

Call EARL so that your manager and department are appropriately alerted. 

Your absence will not be logged in the system properly and you could be marked as a no show. You may not be connected to the Absence and Disability Management team for support while you recover from your illness/injury.  

If you have absence and disability support questions, contact AskDM@fraserhealth.ca

For technical assistance with the EARL system, email EARL@fraserhealth.ca or call 778-241-9624