Developing tangible, quantifiable, and traceable goals is key to creating a Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP). Without targets, ambitions, and goal setting, strategic plans remain passive and ineffective, rarely evolving or making a marked positive impact.

Inclusion goals could, for example, set targets and deadlines to roll out cultural awareness training, build positive and ongoing communications and relationships, work toward economic equity and fair pay agreements, or address institutional integrity by revising and revisiting all policies, procedures, and frameworks.

The targets and inclusion goals you identify may be specific to your organisation or company, but having targets you can see and measure is essential, particularly if you need to be certain that you are recognising genuine vs performative allyship and are falling on the right side of that equation.

Why Should Reconciliation Planning Include Trackable Targets?

As we’ve indicated, a goal or statement without a purpose, objective, or mission is simply an inactive policy. It can’t have a real-world impact, change ingrained biases or inequalities, or help educate and inform if there is no impetus to report progress against targets or identify where goals may need to be changed or updated.

Inclusion goals are not theoretical or a matter of policy but form part of a structured, agile framework for change and action, ensuring you determine your current position in reconciliation planning and can plot your next goals and aims along the way.

Indigenous Australian inclusion strategies with visible, measurable goals improve accountability and give those overseeing those plans a defined, tangible way of seeing, whether they’re making changes according to their plans or where actions are falling behind and more progress is needed.

How to Select Relevant, Realistic, Measurable Inclusion Goals

The principles that apply to any commercial or organisational goal setting are equally applicable when devising inclusion strategies or Reconciliation Action Plans. Targets should be:

• Specific: Vague, generalised goals around improvement or engagement cannot be tracked, which makes it impossible to know whether plans and strategies have been effective and how well they have delivered on the outcomes you set out to achieve.
• Measurable: Using metrics you can see and validate makes a big difference, where stakeholders and those reliant on your inclusion policies can actively see where changes are happening and how these are being monitored.
• Achievable: While we’d all like to deliver profoundly beneficial change immediately, this, unfortunately, isn’t feasible for most. Goals that are achievable, even after an extended period or committed efforts, ensure better take-up and avoid demoralising contributors who don’t expect targets ever to be met.
• Realistic: Just as inclusion goals must be viable and achievable, they should also be realistic. Breaking down bigger-picture targets into smaller chunks, for instance, or understanding what you can achieve right now with your available resources means you aren’t trying to overstretch or set unrealistic expectations.
• Time-sensitive: Timings are relevant, whether setting a deadline by which you’d like to see goals met or refining your goals to determine those you expect to be achieved within this financial year or trading period, for instance.

Hopefully, these parameters help you see how a clear and well-structured action plan ensures progress will be far easier to monitor, evaluate, and appraise.

How Can Organisations Devise Traceable Inclusion Targets to Achieve Qualitative Outcomes?

We often speak with leaders with a vision for an environment or community that embraces diversity, advocates for honesty, transparency, and represents the most inclusive, equitable backdrop for all. We know those targets can seem impossible to pin down or manage in a measurable way.

The key is often to take a step back and think about what those outcomes would feel like on a day-to-day basis for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and communities you want to support and offer equal opportunity to.

Prescriptive action is often too close to performative allyship for comfort. Rather than assigning generic goals or picking unviable targets, it’s essential to consult, listen, and share, welcoming community members and leaders willing to participate to inform the way you move forward. For example, you might need to:

• Take meaningful action to understand the people within your workforce, what matters to them, and what changes they want you to make
• Evaluate how an inclusive environment would welcome individuals from varied perspectives, experiences, and backgrounds

True inclusion and diversity begin with learning and understanding. If you’re struggling to set measurable goals or to grasp what those targets should look like, an initial cultural awareness training plan may be ideal. It can create a baseline of deeper comprehension and awareness, which can help add clarity to the goal-setting process moving forward.