15 Best Online Human Resources Certificate Programs for FREE

Advance your HR career with our recommended certificate programs, tailored for aspiring and experienced HR professionals.

Key Takeaways:

• Programs cover key HR functions and practices.
• Certificates enhance professional credibility.
• Suitable for both beginners and seasoned HR professionals.

What are the benefits of Human Resources certificate programs?

Human Resources certificate programs offer in-depth knowledge of HR practices, enhance your professional credentials, and prepare you for advanced HR roles.

1. Preparing to Manage Human Resources
2. People Analytics
3. Leading High-Performing Team
4. Organizational Design: Know your organization
5. Managing Human Resources in the Hospitality and Tourism Industry
6. Managing People: Teamwork and Diversity
7. Managing Social and Human Capital
8. Human Capital Strategy
9. Human Resource Development
10. Introduction to People Analytics
11. Modern Empowerment in the Workplace
12. Human Resources Management Capstone: HR for People Managers
13. HR Fundamentals
14. Global Human Capital Trends
15. Performance and Reward Management

Human Resources Certificate Courses Evaluation & Selection Criteria

We select Human Resources certificate programs by analyzing course comprehensiveness, instructor qualifications, and industry relevance. Our focus is on programs that provide practical HR skills, up-to-date practices, and recognized certification to boost career prospects.

List of Best Online Human Resources Certificate Programs:

Preparing to Manage Human Resources

University of Minnesota via Coursera
133,539 students enrolled!
★★★★★ (6,509 ratings)

This course is part of Human Resource Management: HR for People Managers Specialization
Are you looking for a foundation for the development of your approach to managing employees? If yes, then you’re on the right path. This course can be opted by both a human resource manager who wants to uplift his/her skills or a person who doesn’t know anything about human resources management. Learn human resource management (HRM) strategies, the importance of the legal context, and what motivates employees. With this course, you’ll know the factual and conceptual basis for developing specific, critical HRM skills on hiring employees, managing performance, and rewarding employees.

People Analytics

University of Pennsylvania via Coursera
100,012 students enrolled!
★★★★★ (5,076 ratings)

Learn the data-driven approach to managing people at work. Through this course, acquire the skills of decision-making about people based on their analytical data. This course is a chance of learning through the three of Wharton’s top professors, who are all experts in the field of people analytics. You can learn the state-of-the-art techniques used to recruit and retain great people. On continuing with this course, you’ll be able to explain people-related issues, such as recruiting, performance evaluation, leadership, hiring and promotion, job design, compensation, and collaboration, etc. By the end of this Penn Course, you’ll be able to perform complex talent management data analysis, and will be able to explain how and when hard data is used to make soft-skill decisions.

Enhance your expertise in human resources management with our curated selection of Discover Valuable Resources for HR Certification.

Leading High-Performing Team

The University of Queensland via edX
38,018 students enrolled!
10 Weeks Duration
8–10 Hours Weekly Study
Want to understand your followers on a deeper level, so that you can lead a great team? Then hurry up and join this course, as it will help you in learning how to motivate, engage and empower people to build effective and high-performing teams. Improvise your skills in recognizing, diagnosing, and remodeling dysfunctional teams into a flourishing team. This course will help you in the establishment of a healthy work culture along with the development of more effective strategies for dealing with workplace disagreements. Moreover, with this course, not only will you analyze your team, but you will be polishing and practicing your leadership skills.

Organizational Design: Know your organization

Macquarie University via Coursera
24,328 students enrolled!
★★★★★ (615 ratings)

From human resources certificate programs, This course is part of the Leading: Human Resource Management and Leadership Specialization
This human resources certificate programs course will help you in examining what organizational culture is, to ensure your team is on the right track. With this course, define the key organizational capabilities, which will assist you in holding a firm’s positioning strategy as the anchoring point for leading an organization. You will be capable of assessing the degree of alignment between key capabilities and organizational architecture. Through this course, you will know when to change plans, and what organizational leadership and alignment are. After completing this course, you will know every primary organizational structure and you will have a more strategic perspective.

Managing Human Resources in the Hospitality and Tourism Industry

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University via edX
22,450 students enrolled!
6 Weeks Duration
6–8 Hours Weekly Study
From human resources certificate programs, This course is all about analyzing contemporary issues in the management of human capital in the hotel and tourism industry. With this course, you will study how to manage employee motivation and how to effectively staff your team. Acquire the knowledge and theories of managing human resources. You will procure the impacts and factors that affect the development of organizational culture, and assess the relationship between the hotel and tourism industry with respect to their society. Through this course, you will be able to analyze, evaluate and identify all of the human resources problems within the hotel and tourism context.

Managing People: Teamwork and Diversity

University of Reading via FutureLearn
5,399+ students enrolled!
3 Weeks Duration
4 Hours Weekly Study
Bringing you now are some golden rules for creating a diverse and efficient workplace. This course brings insight to a well-managed team and a productive team structure. You will understand how teams work, and why they fail, furthermore, you will understand why diverse teams/workplaces are so important, and how to address poor teamwork. This course includes exercises, to apply the social value of team working into effective working practice, you can also explore design teams and reporting mechanisms to dodge team problems. At the end of this course, you will know all of the strengths and weaknesses of teamwork, and you will become a professional human resources manager.

Managing Social and Human Capital

University of Pennsylvania via Coursera
33,858 students enrolled!
★★★★★ (2,117 ratings)

This course is part of the Business Foundations Specialization
Renowned management Professors Mike Useem and Peter Cappelli of the Wharton School are here to teach the key elements of managing people. Successfully learn, how to motivate individual performance, design reward systems, how to design jobs and organize work for high performance, how to make good and timely management decisions, and how to design and change your organization’s architecture. This course will help you in understanding that the most valuable asset of any business is its employees/people and how to manage this asset healthily. After completing this course, you’ll know the difference between a task and a job, and you’ll learn how motivation affects an individual’s performance and how to use that motivation to drive performance.

Human Capital Strategy

Philanthropy University and Hitachi Foundation via Independent
Self-Paced
3-4 Hours Weekly Study

You can expand your knowledge without spending a dime by accessing Philanthropy University’s best courses.

With this course, learn the strategies to attract, retain, and develop employees to drive an organizations’ performance. Learn all of the basics of developing a human capital strategy to maintain an organization’s values and culture. Furthermore, study the skills to recruit and hire the right people and then later building an aspiring team. Through this course, you will have extensive knowledge about structure compensation, employee performance management and relevant professional development. This course is perfect for those businessmen/women who wants to sharpen their HRM leadership skills. After completing this course flourishingly, you will have all of the strategies to implement professional development programs and manage employee performance.

Human Resource Development

Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur and NPTEL via Swayam
7,081 students enrolled!
12 Weeks Duration
Do you want to become a competent HRD practitioner? Yes! Then this is the best course for you. You can learn not only how to make an organization survive but also thrive using the Human Resource Development (HRD) strategy. You will cover the topics related to the design, development, implementation, and evaluation of HRD programs. What more is that, you’ll learn about the mapping framework of HRD, the role of HRD in career planning and development, the organizational learning process, and making organizations a learning organization. At the end of this course, you will have all of the strategies to build a robust organization, and you will become a competent HRD practitioner. Empower yourself with valuable knowledge through our initiative to Unlock Free HR Certification Courses, tailored to professionals seeking growth opportunities.

Introduction to People Analytics

Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology via Coursera
28,291+ students enrolled!
★★★★☆  (299 ratings)

Everyone knows about human capital management, but most people do not know how important is the role of data and technology in it. In this course, you will learn everything about data and technology in a practical way, so that not only do you learn but also gain experience. Moreover, the syllabus of this course is systemized based on the 4Ts principle: Task, Theory, Technique and Technology. You can learn the combination of data, technologies, and tools used in people management processes, you will also learn to measure an organization’s ROI, and a lot more stuff like designing individual and team development plans.

Modern Empowerment in the Workplace

The Open University Business School via FutureLearn
7,439 students enrolled!
4 weeks Duration
3 Hours per week
Learn to empower individuals, organizations and society with this course. Through this course, you can explore the rise of the new empowerment era and what key role does an HR practitioner plays in it. Perceive the changing context for employee empowerment and think through the problems caused by power imbalances in employment relations and recommend solutions with this course. By the end of this course, you will be efficient enough to enunciate and engage with relevant professional and ethical issues in empowerment at work, and you will also recognize the effects of technological change and globalization on contemporary employment relations. This course can be selected by anyone who’s already working in human resources (HR) or someone who’s aiming to work in this field.

Human Resources Management Capstone: HR for People Managers

University of Minnesota via Coursera
14,370 students enrolled!
★★★★★ (375 ratings)

This course is all about the principles and policies of human resource management. This course will help you, interpret managerial choices and constraints. You will also get the idea of compensation analysis and performance management. Moreover, with the capstone project, you can analyze the most pressing motivational, selection, performance evaluation, and reward issues. Carrying on, you will gain the skills of identifying the internal and external context, recruiting and selecting employees etc. Likewise, learn how to manage employee performance, employee compensation and rewards. In the end, you will submit a final project which will help you in analyzing your management skills. Explore the details of becoming a Certified Compensation Professional, a credential highly regarded in HR circles.

HR Fundamentals

CIPD – Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development via FutureLearn
76,025 students enrolled!
5 Weeks Duration
3 Hours Weekly Study

People who are new to the field of Human resources management and want to learn everything from the beginning to the end, this course is ideal for them. Know what it is like to work as an HRM and how HR professionals work and what strategies do they adopt. Look into the basic principles of workforce planning, employee retention and recruitment, and then later on implementing these principles. Through this course, you will exhibit performance management. Furthermore, learn the role of HR in supporting an organization. By the end of this course, you will have all of the strategies and working plans in your hand to become a professional human resources manager.

Global Human Capital Trends

Columbia University via Canvas Network
Self-paced
1 Hour Weekly Study
Want to learn about the top trends in Human Capital Management (HCM)? If yes, then this is the perfect place for you. This is a fitting course for business leaders who are in search of ways to perk up their managerial skills. Jason Wingard, a Professor at the School of Professional Studies at Columbia University, has carefully constructed this course in a way for students to quickly respond and refocus to meet modern challenges. As well as, it includes design thinking for HR, employee engagement, and personalization of learning. By joining this course, you will get familiar with the top trends in HCM, later assisting you in boosting your HR skills and techniques.

Performance and Reward Management

Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur and NPTEL via Swayam
1,541 students enrolled!
12 Weeks Duration
Secrets to retain and make sure that an organization moves conjointly with its human capital can be yours now. The secret is performance and reward management. This course offers the enigmas of an organization to turn and transform its human capital as its strategic business advantage. Learn the techniques to not just retain your staff members but also keep them inspired to perform to their best of ability, which can only be done by designing an effective reward system that cares for the staff needs. This course will help you in developing an understanding of the performance and management of human resources.

Continue with Human Resources Certificate Programs..

An Introduction to the Assessment of People at Work

Coventry University via FutureLearn
2,326 students enrolled!
2 Weeks Duration
3 Hours Weekly Study
With this course, understand the employee life cycle and assessing people at work. You can know when, how and why are people are assessed. Learn about the advantages that are gained when you asses your staff members. This course will aid you in throwing light upon the role of ethics in the recruitment, selection, and development process. Moreover, distinguish the different types of reliability and validity evaluated during test development. At the end of this course, you will be capable of differentiating between recruitment, selection and development in relation to assessment at work.

Introduction to Project Management

• • • S.K. Gupta | Prof. Mukesh Kumar Barua via NPTEL
    • Co-ordinated by: IIT Roorkee
    • 12 Weeks duration
    • Discipline: Management

Introduction to Operations Management

• • • Wharton – University of Pennsylvania via Coursera
    • 10 hours of effort required
    • 89,703+ already enrolled!
    • ★★★★☆ (2,080 Reviews)

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