Manager Voyage · Vanderbilt · People, Culture and Belonging
What is Manager Voyage?
Every day Vanderbilt promotes or hires a new manager, a clock starts. The first 60 days set the patterns that define their leadership for years. Manager Voyage is not a training program. It is a management standard: the first structured, sequenced, institution-wide development journey for every manager at Vanderbilt.
The unmanaged window
Sixty days left to chance.
Without structure, the first 60 days go the same way every time: compliance gaps, avoidable Employee Relations and Equal Opportunity and Access cases, and managers who were never shown what the role actually requires.
4,600
Non-union staff led by Vanderbilt managers.
~400
New or promoted managers enter roles.
0
Prior structured onboarding standard.
60
Days of highest-risk manager decision-making.
What it is
Four components. One journey.
Compliance is required. The Manager Responsibilities Course is strongly recommended. The cohort is optional but recommended, and the portal is always on as your reference. Oracle Learning does the assigning and holds the record; the dashboard is where you track your own way through.
Compliance Courses
State-specific courses, legal and advisory, matched to the manager's work location and delivered through OpenSesame inside Oracle. Compliance is the floor, not the bar.
Manager Responsibilities Course
The operating manual for the role. A 35-minute Foundation course on the web, then supporting micro modules in Oracle Learning across four tracks: Systems, People, Processes, and Vanderbilt & Nashville. Simulators, scenario studios, decision trees, and walkthroughs, not slide decks.
Four-Week Cohort
One hundred managers a quarter, open to anyone who has finished the compliance courses and Manager Foundations. An in-person kickoff, four blended weeks with AI rehearsal and peer labs, and an in-person capstone.
Manager Portal
Every template, framework, policy link, and contact in one web hub. Open from Day 1, before any course is complete, and never taken away. It grows with each cohort cycle.
How the journey flows
The system does the work. The manager does the learning.
Compliance tells a manager what the law requires. The Manager Responsibilities Course tells them what Vanderbilt requires. The cohort turns a compliant manager into a capable one.
Day 1 in role
Assigned on arrival
The HR record shows a management role. Oracle assigns the compliance courses and the Manager Responsibilities Course. Manager Portal access begins immediately.
Days 1 to 30
Systems and story
Foundation course, then the Systems and Vanderbilt & Nashville tracks. By Day 30 the manager can approve time, open a hire, and explain the mission.
Days 31 to 60
People and process
People track and Processes track, every module passed. By Day 60 the manager can handle a leave request, a pay question, and what must be reported.
Day 60
Recorded and invited
Completion is recorded in Oracle against the manager's job profile and triggers the next quarterly cohort invitation. Voluntary. Units outside the central budget are billed per seat.
Cohort and beyond
From compliant to capable
Prework, then four weeks in one rhythm: Core module, Learning Lab, Scenario Studio, and a virtual discussion, with a hybrid kickoff and capstone and deliverables recorded in Oracle. The Portal stays with the manager for good.
The four-week cohort
Where skill development happens.
One hundred managers a quarter, every week in the same rhythm: a Core module in Oracle Learning opens the topic, a Learning Lab in SparkWise works it with peers, a Scenario Studio in Yoodli rehearses the conversation, and a virtual Manager Voyage discussion closes the week around the Manager Playbook. A hybrid kickoff opens the four weeks; a hybrid capstone closes them. Managers arrive having finished the Foundation course.
Core module
A LinkedIn Learning course in Oracle Learning sets the week’s topic. Released the Friday before, done on the manager’s own schedule.
45 to 60 minutesLearning Lab
A facilitated small-group peer lab in SparkWise on the same topic, working a live case from someone’s real team.
45 minutes, liveScenario Studio
The week’s conversation, rehearsed in Yoodli with an AI counterpart grounded in Vanderbilt policy. From week 2.
15 minutesManager Voyage discussion
Virtual and FLH-facilitated: what happened when you tried it, and what your Playbook section says now.
30 minutes; 60 in weeks 1 and 4Before the kickoff
New Manager Foundations, the first sentence of your Philosophy, and the calendar holds for all four weeks. About ninety minutes on your own time.
What it means to manage
Hybrid one-hour kickoff. Management identity and psychological safety. Playbook: Manager Philosophy.
Goal setting, 1:1s, difficult conversations
A rehearsed 1:1 that turns hard, and one real conversation held. Playbook: 1:1 framework and conversation plan.
Coaching and mentoring
Delegation and coach-or-correct labs; a coaching conversation rehearsed. Playbook: Delegation and growth plan.
Performance management and developing talent
Vanderbilt’s performance management class, a team development accountability lab, two performance conversations rehearsed, then the hybrid two-hour capstone: the Integrated Management Model and the Team Development Plan presented to peers and your business unit leader.
Manager Playbook. A written personal operating system: philosophy, 1:1 framework, delegation and growth plan, performance practice. One section a week.
Integrated Management Model. A one-page model of how the four weeks connect for this manager. Synthesis, not attendance.
Team Development Plan. A 90-day plan for the manager’s actual team, challenged by peers in week 4 and presented at the capstone.
Why it matters
Three places the return shows up.
Success is not measured by seat time. It shows up in team engagement, in case volume, and in the bench of leaders ready to step up.
Managers who lead better
Managers are the single greatest influence on team engagement. Voyage builds goal setting, 1:1s, and coaching before damage is done. Tracked in the engagement survey scores.
Fewer preventable failures
The most avoidable cases start with a manager never taught to handle a difficult conversation or to recognize when something must be escalated. The first 60 days are the most direct risk-reduction investment Vanderbilt can make.
A deeper leadership bench
One standard across all 39 business units means graduates can be compared on the same evidence when promotion and succession decisions are made.
Where we are · September 2026
Not in development. In production.
The pilot is complete. Oracle auto-assignment is live. The Manager Portal is active. The first full quarterly cohort is ready to launch.
01 Compliance Courses
State-specific courses auto-assigned on role entry.
02 Manager Responsibilities Course
Foundation course plus the micro-module tracks. Also assigned once to every current manager.
03 Manager Portal
Always-on hub for all managers, all divisions, from Day 1.
04 Four-Week Cohort
Pilot complete. First full quarterly cohort open, 100 seats.
15
Participants, launched March 26, 2026.
8
Business units represented.
7
Divisions shaping the content.
100
Seats per quarter.
“The quality of Vanderbilt’s future depends on the quality of its managers today. Manager Voyage is how we build them.”Futures Learning Hub · Office of People, Culture and Belonging