Employer Advisory Service over the holiday period

The Employer Advisory Service (EAS) will close at 12:30 pm (local time) on Tuesday 24 December 2024 and reopen on Thursday 2 January 2025.

You can still lodge enquiries with the EAS during this time using our Enquiry Form and we’ll respond in January 2025. Our response time for providing written advice may be longer than usual.

Learn more at Our services over the holiday period.

Our Employer Advisory Service (EAS) gives small business employers free tailored written advice about pay and conditions to help you make sure you’re meeting your obligations under the Fair Work Act.

Consider using the EAS if you:

  • aren’t sure about the pay and conditions your employees are entitled to, or want to confirm that what you’re paying them is correct
  • are planning to hire your first employee or to recruit people to do new types of jobs
  • are confused or need more information about leave arrangements, meal breaks, allowances or other entitlements
  • have any other question about:
    • pay and conditions under awards and enterprise agreements,
    • the National Employment Standards, or
    • your record keeping and payslip obligations.

On this page

How does the EAS work?

After you submit your enquiry, an EAS adviser will review it to check if we need more information from you. This may take 1-2 days.

If we have all the information we need, we'll email you our advice as quickly as we can.

If we need to call you to get more information, the discussion could take up to 30 minutes.

We then research the answers to your questions, prepare advice tailored specifically for your business and send it to you in writing.

How to access the EAS

To access the EAS, you can:

Benefits of using the EAS

When you get advice from the EAS, you can be confident you are meeting your obligations under the Fair Work Act.

Other benefits include:

  • written advice for complex or involved enquiries can be more convenient than getting advice over the phone
  • EAS advisers have time to fully discuss your enquiry at a time that suits you
  • you can show the advice to your employees
  • you can read it whenever you have time and keep it for future reference
  • our written advice comes with our advice guarantee
  • you can ask us extra questions about the written advice you’ve received from us at any time.

We are committed to helping small business comply with the Fair Work Act and the EAS helps small businesses do that.

How the EAS can help small businesses – case studies

Apprentice wages and allowances – residential construction

Bob owns a carpentry business and employs 3 apprentices. He needs information about the vehicle allowances under his award. He also needs information about his apprentices’ annual and sick leave entitlements.

During the initial discussion with the EAS adviser, the adviser asks detailed questions about the apprentices’ duties, their length of service, ages, stage of apprenticeship and whether they finished year 12 at school.

Based on the information Bob gives the adviser, the adviser provides Bob with written advice that outlines his obligations under the Building and Construction General Onsite Award for each apprentice. The advice explains:

  • that apprenticeship progression is based on either length of service or completed competencies, depending on whether the apprentice is junior, adult or school based
  • that the vehicle allowance is paid per kilometre for employees using their own vehicle to travel between work
  • how much annual and sick leave the employees are entitled to
  • that leave starts accruing from the first day of employment.

The adviser also gives Bob links to the relevant award clauses and our Pay and Conditions Tool.

Read more case studies about how the EAS has helped small businesses.

More information for small business