Effectiveness of the Fair Work Ombudsman-Free-Samples for Students

Question: Discuss the role and assess the effectiveness of the Fair Work Ombudsman in the Australian system of employment relations. Answer: Fair Work Ombudsman is an industrial relations tribunal of Australia. It plays a very crucial role in ensuring that the Australian people are receiving their proper wages, entitlements and holidays. It ensures that no worker is being ill treated and that they are aware of their workplace rights (Bray Waring, 2014). This paper will elaborate on the role and will analyze the effectiveness of te Fair Work Ombudsman in the Australian system of employment relations. It shall discuss about the office of The Fair Work Ombudsman, its importance in the system of employment relation and the future of it. It will also assess how the Fair Work Ombudsman is exercising its functions and its limitations as well. Furthermore, this paper will also shed light on the rules and regulations for the department of Fair Work Ombudsman in order to exercise their functions. The Office of The Fair Work Ombudsman, also known as the Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO) is operating under the Fair Work Act, which was started on 1st July 2009 (Hardy, Howe Cooney, 2013). At present, the head of the FWO is Natalie James, whose primary aim is reporting to the national Minister of Employment (Bray et al., 2018). It is directed by the Australian Government as an independent statutory agency that caters as a central point of contact to seek free advice on Australian national workplace relations system. The Office of The Fair Work Ombudsman consists of Fair Work inspectors, the Fair Work Ombudsman and the aiding staffs who are concentrated on catering the needs and requirements of everyone who falls under the nation workplace system (Australia). The Office of The Fair Work Ombudsman has its offices based in Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, Perth, Brisbane, Canberra, Darwin and other regional locations. With the same, there are also several state partner offices that are located in South Australia, New South Wales and Queensland, which deliver the services that are usually delivered by the Office of The Fair Work Ombudsman. The Fair Work Ombudsman takes several pro active measures and activities in the field of education, compliance and information. It investigates the complaints of the workplace and imposes compliance along with the national laws of workplace (Shaw, McPhail Ressia, 2018). However, beside these, there are many functions of the Office of the Fair Work Ombudsman according to the Fair Work Act of 2009. It offers the employers and the employees free advice and information related to the conditions (like annual leave), pay, workplace rights and obligations that are needed to be considered as according to the system of national workplace relations. For example, if a person runs a business, the FW Infoline can guide him by providing him necessary knowledge about the pay rates, the terms and conditions for the employees in terms of employment, pay slip obligations, record keeping and other related rights and obligations that fall under the Fair Work ACT. Furthermore, it conducts audits and tar geted campaigns (Wright, Lansbury, 2016). Through the targeted campaigns, the FWO aims to notify the employers in a particular sector of their obligations as well as to ensure that they are complying and comprehending with the Commonwealth workplace laws. These campaigns are either national or state based. On the other hand, through the audit, they check on the records of the employers to ensure the same. These audits can be initiated by the FWO members by sending audit notification letter to each of the employees. Furthermore, they also take into consideration the complaints of the workers under national workplace regarding the underpayment of their wages, discrimination with them in their workplace and conditions in context to the workplace rights. The Office of the Fair Work Ombudsman is effectively playing its roles and duties in terms of employment relations in Australia. It is promoting harmonious, cooperative and productive workplace relations (Hardy Howe, 2015). It is also monitoring, investing as well as enforcing compliance along with admissible Commonwealth workplace laws. The Australian workplace relations laws are approved by the department of Commonwealth. The empirical applications of the Australian Fair Work Act in the workplaces are overseen by the Fair Work Ombudsman and the Fair Work Commission (Stevens, 2018). The Fair Work Ombudsman is helping the employers, employees, contractors as well as the wide community of the Australia in understanding their workplace rights, responsibilities and policies and is enforcing compliance with the workplace laws of the country. It is providing a single point of contract for reliable and opportune information regarding the workplace relations system of Australia (Stewart Owens, 2013). It is educating all the employees, working in the Australia based companies about the fair work practices, obligations, laws and rights. It is effectively assessing the suspected beaches of Fair Work Commission orders, the workplace laws, agreements and the complaints from the parts of the employees or the workers. With the sa me, it is also suing in certain circumstances in order to enforce the Australian workplace laws and is deterring the people from causing wrong to the community. Hence, the office of The Fair Work Ombudsman is successfully building a strong, effective and productive relation with the industry, their stakeholders and the unions. They work closely in order to ensure that their services are attainable, relevant, timely, and un-segregated to all the Australians. Nevertheless, there are certain limitations of the Fair Work Ombudsman. They cannot investigate any unfair or unlawful dismissal or termination applications. They also cannot make changes to the Australian legislation or awards or registered agreements. Along with that, it also cannot investigate the harassment and bullying complaints. The strategic focus of the Fair Work Ombudsman is to ensure that the new workplace relations system of the Government of Australia is implemented fully ; the employers, employees, outworkers, their entities and their respective organizations are been informed and educated thoroughly about the new system; and the effective workplace relations agreement is realized. The staffs of the FWO are committed to supplying advice, upon which people can depend upon and they help the employers and the employees in resolving the issues prevailing in their workplace. It also appoints several Fair Work inspectors who are empowered especially for investigating and enforcing compliance with the Australian workplace laws and the industrial instruments consisting of the National Employment Standards; provisions of the Fair Work Act 2009 and Independent Contract Act 2006; orders of the Fair Work Commissions; the agreement-based transitional instruments and enterprise agreements as well as the modern awards and award-based transitional instruments. The agreement-based transitional instruments include the individual transitional employment agreement, Australian workplace agreements, collective agreements etc, whereas the modern awards and award-based transitional instruments include the National agreements that preserve the state awards, federal awards, the state re ference awards as well as the Division 2B state awards. Furthermore it is also to be noted that people can request help from the Fair Work Ombudsman only if they are covered by the Fair Work Act and if they know that they are not getting correct wages, conditions or their workplace rights in true terms ("Welcome to the Fair Work Ombudsman website", 2018). However, they can also seek for help from the FWO if they are sure that their employer is unlawfully or illegally discriminating against them. With the same, there are certain guidelines that the FWO staff and employees must consider while their operation of their roles and duties (Hardy Howe, 2013). For example, the FWO employees should treat the public with due respect and courtesy, without any kind of ill-treatment or harassment. It must provide prompt and high-quality service to the community. The FWO Inspectors should give the required and reasonable assistance to the parties, and must assist the people in understanding their obligations and entitlements. He must not overlook any legal entitlements and should not provide any such benefits to which a man is not entitled. It must manage the law with justice and equitably and must always provide efficient, effective and responsive services. To sum up, it can be stated that Fair Work Ombudsman is playing a great part in managing the system of employment relations in Australia. It is guiding the employees and the employers all over the country by providing them free advice and knowledge. In this way it is promoting a productive workplace relations and helping the Australian people in gaining an in-depth knowledge about their rights, duties and compliance at their work place so that when they confront any issues in relation to these, they can effectively manage to do what they should do to overcome or to face them, without any loss in their part. This paper has provided a clear view of the roles and responsibilities of the FWO towards the country men. However, there are few limitations too, as FWO cannot perform most of the tasks like changing the legislations and investigate any illegal dismissal, but these cannot make the importance of the FWO any less References Bray, M Waring, P 2014, Chapter 5: Employment relations, in R Kramar, T Bartram, H De Cieri, RA Noe, JR Hollenbeck, B Gerhart PM Wright, Human resource management in Australia: strategy, people, performance, 5th edn, McGraw-Hill Education (Australia), North Ryde, CQUniversity Course Resources Online (HRMT20027). Bray, M, Waring, P, Cooper, R Macneil, J 2018, Employment relations: Theory and practice, 4th edn, McGraw-Hill Education (Australia), Sydney. Hardy, T Howe, J 2015, Chain reaction: A strategic approach to addressing employment noncompliance in complex supply chains, Journal of Industrial Relations, vol. 57, no. 4, pp. 563-584. Hardy, T., Howe, J. (2013). 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