The Best Culture Coach Certification Programs

Last updated on March 15, 2024

If you find joy in cultivating environments that inspire positive transformation, then culture coaching could be an ideal path for you. However, before you start this journey, you need a reputable credential that convinces potential clients of the value you bring. 

Here are the best culture coach certification programs we highly recommend.

• Healthy Culture Now – Best for Well-Being Culture Coaching
• Intercultural Coach – Best for Intercultural Agile Coaching
• Maslow Research – Best for Executive Culture Coaching
• Transformation Academy – Best for Employee-Focused Culture Coaching

What Is a Culture Coach?

A culture coach is a trained professional who helps organizations cultivate and maintain a positive and thriving workplace culture. Their work revolves around understanding and shaping a company’s values, behaviors, and dynamics to create an environment that promotes growth, collaboration, and employee satisfaction. 

Culture coaches collaborate closely with leaders, managers, teams, and employees to identify areas for improvement and implement positive changes. They can provide insights, strategies, and support to align the organizational culture with the company’s goals and values. 

How To Become a Culture Coach

The coaching market doesn’t have strict rules, so you can become a coach even if you equip yourself with only your knowledge and goodwill. So why even bother spending time getting certified? 

Some clients may be flexible and not ask for certification, but if they do, you want to be ready to deliver. 

Factors to Consider When Choosing a Culture Coaching Certification

When choosing a program, there are a couple of factors that you want to have in mind. The price of the program, its length, and accreditation can, in many ways, shape your decision, so let’s look into these aspects.

Program Cost

The prices of training programs are pretty diversified, so you can certainly find a program that fits within your budget. Online programs are typically to be more affordable and offer greater flexibility than in-person courses, so distance learning is the preferred choice for many coaches.

Course Length

If you’re already working with clients or all set to start your business, except for a certificate, consider shorter, intensive courses or self-paced programs. These allow you to learn at your own speed.

Accreditation

The accrediting body that sets the gold standard of professional coaching is the International Coaching Federation (ICF). As an ICF-accredited coach, you can assure clients that your coaching follows ICF’s strict code of ethics. 

But what if you find an excellent culture coaching program that’s not ICF-accredited? No problem! You can still improve your skills and get the credentials you want by adding an ICF-accredited life coach program to your training.

If you’re looking for a great ICF-accredited program, our top recommendation is Coach Training Alliance. Check out our review to see why.

Best Culture Coach Certifications

Here are some of the best culture coaching certifications out there:

Well-Being Culture Coaching Option: Healthy Culture Now

The Well-Being Culture Coach Training and Certification program from Culture Now incorporates insights from hundreds of organizations of all sizes to deliver a short but informative course on creating supportive cultural environments. Industry experts deliver training and share tips, tools, and strategies for honing skills in this field. 

The program unfolds across five units and dives into topics such as defining well-being cultures, empowering leadership, mobilizing peer support, fostering a healthy work atmosphere, and developing a culture change plan. 

While the learning is mostly self-guided, it also includes three live sessions with an instructor, which enrich and deepen the learning experience.

• Course Length: Self-paced
• Program Cost: $99
• Accreditation: NCHEC
• Mode of Delivery: Online

Intercultural Agile Coaching Option: Intercultural Coach

Intercultural Coach brings a laser-focused approach to culture coaching that centers on intercultural agile coaching. To be eligible to join, you need a minimum of 24 hours of coach-specific training and at least 20 logged coaching hours.

In this program, you’ll gain both personal and peer understanding of what drives culture, and learn how to create strategies for culturally diverse organizational environments. Perhaps the most significant advantage is the Cultural Agility toolbox. This practical toolkit is designed to help you effectively manage intercultural relationships in the workplace.

• Course Length: 5 months
• Program Cost: $3,450
• Accreditation: ICF
• Mode of Delivery: Online

Executive Culture Coaching Option: Maslow Research

The founder of Maslow Research, Timothy Tiryaki, introduced the concept of Organizational Culture Coaching (OCC) at the global ICF Converge Conference in 2021. 

OCC is a groundbreaking approach that blends coaching with cultural transformation. It equips leaders to understand and influence organizational systems, shape mindsets, and play a key role in cultural initiatives.

Their Certified Executive Culture Coach (CECC) Certification is a unique program that trains coaches in OCC. As a participant, you’ll learn how to integrate OCC into your coaching practice and use it to aid organizations in their transformation efforts.

The program provides in-depth knowledge of the interplay between individual and group behaviors. You’ll become adept at coaching executives both one-on-one and in groups, gain expertise in utilizing culture-actualization survey data, and learn to work with various cultural models effectively.

The Culture Levers course is a prerequisite for the CECC Certification. This foundational course is included in the CECC program package without any extra charge.

• Course Length: 8 weeks
• Program Cost: $5,000
• Accreditation: ICF
• Mode of Delivery: Online

Employee-Focused Option: Transformation Academy

The Employee Performance Life Coach program by Transformation Academy will set you up with a tried-and-true coaching process for building better relationships within teams, boosting employee performance, and creating a positive culture within organizations. 

While this course is geared toward managers, it can be just as useful to culture coaches.

Some of the things you’ll learn include building trust-based relationships, setting goals, measuring performance, empowering teams, handling difficult conversations, and increasing employee satisfaction. This program also comes with ready-made templates, questionnaires, and more. 

• Course Length: Self-paced
• Program Cost: $197 (Use our link to get 50% off. Discount applied at checkout.)
• Accreditation: CPD
• Mode of Delivery: Online

FAQs

• How much does a culture coach make?

The average culture coach’s salary is $67,625 per year in the US, as reported by Glassdoor. 

• Do you need a certification to be a culture coach?

You don’t need certification to meet any requirements, but you do need it if you want trustworthy proof of your expertise in the culture coaching field.

• How much does a culture coach certification cost?

Culture coach certifications can cost anywhere from $100 to $5,000.

• Does accreditation matter in a culture coach certification program?

Accreditation matters because it acts as a stamp of approval from a recognized authority in the coaching field. It assures that the culture coach certification program meets established criteria for quality and effectiveness.

• What is the most recognized coaching certification? 

There isn’t a certification program that can be singled out as the most recognized program since there are numerous certification options and many of them have unique values and advantages. 

But to ensure global recognition and credibility, opting for programs accredited by organizations like the Continuing Professional Development (CPD) and the International Coaching Federation (ICF) is a wise choice.

Conclusion

Certification can boost your coaching skills and convince companies that you have the knowledge and tools to establish the kind of workplace culture that breeds success. 

With the right credentials, you’ll be ready to make a meaningful impact within organizations and create environments where people genuinely want to be. 

We hope that you’ll find your ideal program among our top picks, whether that ends up being Healthy Culture Now, Intercultural Coach, Maslow Research, Transformation Academy, or maybe the life coaching program at Coach Training Alliance.

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