Fair Work Commission

A significant part of the Commission's resources are dedicated to dealing with enquiries from the public, which come via its website, telephone enquiry line, emails and visits to offices in each capital city.

Website visits

The Commission's website is the primary source of information about the Commission and the central portal for accessing the Commission's services, application forms and information resources. In 2015–16, the website received 4.72 million visitors, roughly one million, or 25.3 per cent, more than the 3.77 million visitors received in 2014–15.

The Commission's benchbooks are popular resources, providing parties with information to assist them with their matter and to prepare for matters before the Commission. The Enterprise Agreement Benchbook was viewed 33,065 times during 2015–16; the General Protections Benchbook was viewed 35,192 times; the Unfair Dismissal Benchbook 34,738 times and the Anti-Bullying Benchbook 11,806 times.

The Commission also provides online quizzes for people enquiring about an issue and seeking information on whether they are eligible to make an application to the Commission. The unfair dismissal eligibility quiz was viewed 131,099 times during the 12 months, the anti-bullying eligibility quiz was viewed 50,225 times and the general protections eligibility quiz 27,968 times.

On 8 July 2016, the Commission launched its new website to make it easier for clients to access the information they need. It includes search, navigation, content and layout enhancements. The launch of the new website followed an extensive usability review of the Commission's former website in early 2015. The changes reflected the feedback provided by the Commission's stakeholders during the usability review and offered improved functionality, particularly in relation to the search function.

Our aim was to make the site easier to use, particularly for unrepresented parties and first time users who may have more limited knowledge of the Commission.

Justice Ross

Some of the new website features include:

• dedicated quick links for different users groups, such as small and large businesses, registered organisations, practitioners, researchers and the media
• easier access to decisions, orders, awards, hearing lists and commonly used forms from the homepage
• a more intuitive interface to help users locate information more quickly

The Commission is committed to continually improving its website and welcomes feedback via the dedicated feedback section.

In 2016–17 the Commission expects to see further growth in website traffic.

Figure 5: Website visits

Figure 5 represents data from Table 8.

Telephone enquiries

The Commission provides a telephone enquiry line and Registry staff are available to answer queries about the Commission's functions, activities, processes and procedures. Calls can be made via a national telephone enquiry number with different options available to help callers find information or access services quickly. Calls are also made directly to Commission offices and to various staff support teams such as the unfair dismissal conciliation support team or directly to the chambers of a Member dealing with a matter.

Calls to the Commission's national telephone enquiry number and Registry offices around the country remained stable during 2015–16 at 203,796 slightly down from 207,749 in 2014–15.

Reflecting the Commission's service charter objective of providing seamless service delivery, 46.5 per cent of all calls made to the Commission in 2015–16 were referred to a more appropriate agency. Of these calls, the Commission referred 76.6 per cent to the Fair Work Ombudsman, 19.7 per cent to various work health and safety regulators and 3.7 per cent to the Australian Tax Office.

The average wait time for a call to the Commission to be answered was three minutes and 30 seconds, consistent with the timeframes in 2014–15.

Commission staff reviewed the Commission's telephone services in 2015–16 and developed a training and services improvement plan focusing on communication excellence. This included developing and building online learning materials.