The Certification programme has been developed in partnership with the research, leadership and management faculty at Hult International Business School. This work has also been supported by an Advisory Panel of senior HR leaders for a robust practitioner perspective. It builds on 10 years of Business Culture Awards data. The programme has undergone a pilot phase during Autumn Winter 2025, to validate the assessment tools and methodology. The research team at Hult has conducted statistical analysis during the pilot phase to ensure the validity of culture measurement.

There are 4 steps in total, including an employee survey; a People, Culture & Strategy Report; other People & Culture Documentation and an Eligibility & Integrity Declaration.

As a guide, this should take approximately 4-5 weeks from the day your survey opens. Applicants can gather their People & Culture Documentation and write their People, Culture & Business Strategy Report during the survey window if they wish, to achieve the shortest possible timeframe. All data submitted will then be analysed and you will receive your overall rating and report within approximately 2 weeks. If you have achieved the minimum rating to be certified, you will receive your Certification badge and other promotional assets at this point also.

You can apply at any point during the calendar year, according the most practical time to run the short Business Culture Certification survey and complete the other 3 steps.

You’ll receive templates, guidance, and access to a Certification Advisor for questions.

A Certification Advisor is on hand to take you through the application steps, and can show you each of the four steps. The best way to do this is over a short call. When you register, they will be in touch promptly with a Certification Guide, your quote and to set up a call.

Around 15 minutes. It is accessible on all devices, therefore suitable for all employees, whether office-based, remote or frontline.

No, but a strong survey response rate helps ensure meaningful insights. A two-week window is recommended, which can be extended if you need to generate a higher number of responses. We can give guidance for your individual organisation on the minimum responses you would need to achieve, as this depends on your organisation size. For programme evaluation, there is no set percentage that is accurate for every population or organisation.

Yes, it is available in any language and employees can select the language they wish to complete it in.

In order to provide a Certification across any organisation who applies, a standard survey should be completed. While it would in theory be possible to map your results to your existing survey, this is not part of the scope of the Certification process and is not included within your Certification quote. It would likely involve further work by our survey partner in collaboration with your own, if this is a different provider.

As a guide you should submit up to 500 words in answer to each of the 6 questions. You will not be able to exceed this number of words within the form. The best person to complete this is a senior leader or someone with strategic oversight of people and culture.

This is another important part of the certification evidence base and enables us to provide a more robust assessment of your culture. This will be existing documentation you already have within your business and we provide a list of the types of documents you can include. While it won’t be necessary to provide all of them, the more data you include, the more insightful your Business Culture Assessment Report will be. Share what you have and we also understand that formats and content will vary significantly by organisation.

No problem, we understand that there are often competing business priorities and sometimes other tasks have to take precedence. As long as there have been no material changes within the organisation which would invalidate survey results, if this has already run, you would have up to 3 months to complete the other steps.

Yes. The survey alone provides valuable insights across all cultural dimensions and you can undertake this step only as a Readiness Review. This will give an indication of the likelihood your organisation would be certified. We cannot certify an organisation if all 4 steps are not completed however.

You’ll receive your Business Culture Assessment Report and this will contain your overall rating and ratings for each individual area. A Certification Advisor will go through this with you to pinpoint the improvements that need to be made. You will then have up to 3 months to resubmit, assuming no material changes during this period within your organisation.

Your Certification lasts for a period of 24 months after it has been awarded. At 12 months you will have a call with a Certification Advisor and sign a new Eligibility & Integrity Declaration – a statement confirming there are no material reasons why your organisation should not be certified, including any material changes within the organisation, such as a change in company ownership or IPO. During the period that the certification applies, the organisation must undertake to live according to the spirit of the certification framework. At 12 months, an annual renewal fee will be due to continue your Certification and promotional assets. At 24 months, you would reapply by completing the four steps of the application process.

Organisations may apply if they have at least 10 full-time, permanent employees with a tenure of at least 1 month.

Companies should have been operating for at least two full years before they start the application process.

Yes, this is highly competitive and is based on the size of your organization and whether you wish to apply for the whole organisation or one geographical location for example. Please register here to receive a quotation.

No. All data is confidential and reviewed only by the Business Culture Certification team and the Hult research team. The applicant will be the only one to receive the full report. For certified organisations, we share a rating and short case study if we have their permission to do so. For organisations undergoing a Readiness Review, and for any other applicant who does not achieve certification, no data will be shared publicly.

Yes. Recognition and publicity are optional. You can opt to use the data internally only. If you wish to promote your recognition publicly, we make a range of promotional assets available to you, including recognition badges, copy for your internal & external comms, certificate, and case studies.