Inclusion strategies throughout Australia provide a framework for companies, organisations, and institutions to make meaningful, sustained changes to ensure they represent the best in inclusivity, equality, and parity. This all starts with relationship and communication building.

The key word is ‘strategy,’ which means an approach to fostering inclusivity isn’t a passive policy or a one-time exercise. Instead, it is a shifting and multi-faceted action plan that examines the best ways to learn, communicate, and recognise the hardships and disparities experienced by Aboriginal people and identifies the right ways to move toward inclusion and reconciliation.

Policies and planning should incorporate measurable Indigenous inclusion goals to uphold accountability standards, whether they’re developed as part of Reconciliation Action Plans or as separate inclusion strategies to shape how an organisation addresses and reforms its environment, infrastructure, and culture.

What Is an Indigenous Inclusion Strategy?

Inclusion strategies are organisation-specific, customised plans that set out how the entity or institution expects to increase inclusivity in a holistic, communicative, and informed manner. This often begins with promoting Indigenous cultural literacy to ensure a solid foundation of respect and acknowledgement.

Strategies can be as straightforward or dynamic as required by the setting but set out to work towards long-term goals and strategic aims, such as:

• Augmenting education and learning about oppression, hardships, and traumas experienced by First Nations communities in the past and present day
• Offering support in a way that is welcomed and agreed upon, such as offering economic and employment opportunities or considering the most equitable ways to provide access to resources and land
• Recognition of culture, spiritual beliefs, and differences and ensuring all are protected equally, which might mean commemorating significant dates or holding space for individuals to celebrate or mark culturally meaningful events in a way they choose

Importantly, inclusion isn’t a token gesture or about allocating a proportion of recruitment vacancies or educational places to people from marginalised backgrounds. It’s about taking an active, holistic approach to identifying barriers to inclusion and dismantling them sustainably.

How Australian Inclusion Strategies May Differ Between Organisations

For workplaces, inclusion strategies may be primarily based around making the company or organisation a representative of best practices by developing programs to ensure that training and secure employment are available. This should come with targeted structures, support schemes, or recruitment processes to ensure these actively promote opportunities to marginalised communities.

Others may look at organisational frameworks to steer their work around wider issues impacting Indigenous communities in their local area or how to promote and advocate for interdisciplinary approaches in their field. This means an inclusion strategy for a business might look very different from that of a school.

However, both might equally involve cultural competency training, formal acknowledgements of Traditional Owners, and rewriting policies, documentation, and literature to use inclusive language. They may also include looking at the wider environment to ensure it is respectful and accessible to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and indeed individuals of all backgrounds, experiences, and cultures.

Why Should Organisations and Institutions Develop Indigenous Inclusion Strategies?

Diversity itself is a powerful asset for any organisation, and those who proactively and deliberately introduce policies and strategies designed to support inclusivity see compelling benefits. They include:

• Greater pride, unity, and shared goals within teams and workforces
• Cultures and environments that foster trust, transparency, and common goals
• The ability to draw on varied and dynamic experiences, perceptions, backgrounds, and histories to enhance the way businesses deliver services

Most strategies start with a conversation. This is because any approach intended to respect the Indigenous culture and acknowledge disparities cannot be shaped by those without lived experience, no matter how pure their intentions are.

By recognising and acknowledging customs, values, traditions, and beliefs, organisations can empower communities and stakeholder groups to guide their strategic development, ensuring policies and practices take every opportunity to support dynamic and authentic inclusion.

Are Inclusion Strategies Necessary for Small Businesses?

Although many Australian businesses assume that inclusion strategies are only relevant to big corporate institutions, the reality is that every organisation of every size has a part to play in determining what they can do to effect real inclusivity through a lens of diversity and reconciliation. Much as a stakeholder plan cannot exist or achieve its aims without consulting the very stakeholders it seeks to serve, Indigenous inclusion strategies should be created against a theme of partnership and collaborative engagement.

This ensures organisations respect and uphold the rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and make space for their voices, wishes, and needs to be heard–and subsequently acted upon.