🦃 Gobble up

It's almost time to gather around the table. Better start thinking about what you're thankful for now. (And yes, time off counts.)

Look, we get it — if you hear “Q4” again, you might bury your head into Grandma's famous potato casserole. So here’s our promise: This edition of The Manual is here to make your life a little easier before the turkey hits the table.

Let’s dig in, shall we?

GIVING IS RECEIVING

Five ways to build a high-performing team

You know that feeling when you’re dragging a couch alone vs. lifting it with people who actually know what they’re doing? That’s the difference a real team makes. Great teammates (AKA high performers) love environments where the work is clear and the people around them make the load lighter.

Our VP of Marketing, Jami, has built one of the highest-performing teams at Trainual — and yes, we’d absolutely help her move her couch.

Steal these five team-boosting lessons from her:

1. Relationships > everything. People perform better when managers truly know them. Build rapport to foster the trust needed for tough conversations.
2. Feedback shouldn’t be stigmatized. If feedback becomes rhythmic, improvements will too. Give feedback monthly, and celebrate wins regularly.
3. Focus on your top players. Your best people have an intangible boost to the morale of your team. Spend energy with them, and watch how it snowballs.
4. Give ownership, not orders. Your team can take ten steps forward if you take a step back. Give them the keys. The ownership comes naturally.
5. Process creates freedom. Clear documentation = accountability. When everyone knows the “how,” your team moves faster.

WE SAT DOWN WITH A PRO BASKETBAL TEAM

'You can't deliver championship-level experiences with outdated systems and guesswork.'

The Phoenix Suns and Phoenix Mercury know championships are built on systems.

How do we know? We asked them. And we even got a behind-the-scenes look at how their operations run — the real stuff you don’t see on game day.

Turns out, they’re not winging it. They’re running on Trainual.

And when new leadership, new facilities, and huge goals all hit at once, they used Trainual to turn that momentum into a clean, scalable system that keeps everyone aligned. Now it’s changing how pro sports organizations train, operate, and grow.

🏀 Inside the story:

• A $100M investment in infrastructure and culture.
• 98% completion rates on team training.
• One connected playbook powering every department, from marketing to player services.

Five plays to add to your operations:

• Lead with principles. Start with your company’s core values and make them the first thing new hires learn by setting up training paths (more on those below!). That way, they know what you stand for from day one.
• Recruit change champions. Every team needs a few MVPs off the court. Use this template to rally your department leads and turn “we should systemize” into “this is how we operate.”
• Practice, don’t lecture. Replace static lessons with short videos, quick quizzes, or role-play scenarios. Treat training like drills — reps that reinforce what matters most.
• Track progress. Use people and subject reporting to see who’s completed their training and where gaps remain.
• Build culture into your content. Add shoutouts, team photos, or origin stories to your training. When people see themselves in the content, they buy into the mission.

👉 Learn how the Phoenix Suns and Phoenix Mercury leveled up their operations.

ALL THE FIXIN'S

How to fix what really slows your team down.

In the spirit of gratitude, we made this month’s toolkit just for you, built around the real challenges our teams hear from people in your exact spot.

Scattered docs, messy onboarding, no accountability, and overwhelm — these are the big four. So we're tackling each one head-on.

Your fall fix-it toolkit includes:

• 🗂️ Centralizing everything starter guide. One place for every SOP, checklist, and policy — thank us later. 😏
• 📖 Plug-and-play onboarding template. Give every new hire the same clear starting line to increase retention by 82%.
• 🔍 Accountability crash course. If “it fell through the cracks" sounds familiar, this one’s your shortcut to matching people to responsibilities.

👉 If you're tired of juggling training, docs, and expectations across ten different places, book a demo and let us walk you through a clean, simple starting point.

AUTOMATION STATION

How to keep momentum high through every stage of the employee journey

As you wrap projects and plan for what’s next — maybe even hunt down a functional pair of turkey day pants — it’s also a good moment to step back and look at how people actually move through your company. New year, new goals, new hires. Here's how to automate key moments now for a fresh start in 2026.

For onboarding: Make sure data is consistent across systems.

Adding a new hire to a parade of tools, one by one, can be… a lot. Our advice: Pick systems that play nice with the ones you already use. When your training platform syncs with your HR or payroll system, adding a new hire (or updating their info, or getting next steps for their offboarding) is as simple as clicking “Approve.”

For new-hire training: Make your onboarding experience repeatable.

Recreating the same new hire experience over and over? Not the best use of anyone’s time. (And good luck trying to replicate it 1:1.) Figure out what works the best — with the most efficient flow, sequence, and pace of learning — then assign it to every new hire who needs it. See how we do it below. 👇

🔥 Tip: When you Trainual to set up content verification reminders, they show up as dashboard action items, prompting owners to review, update, and mark material as “Verified.” That stamp (with a date!) gives everyone confidence they’re looking at the latest and greatest.

For upskilling: Put existing training to work.

As you’re building out professional development opportunities for your team, start by using the content you already have. Uploading pre-built SCORM courses to the same place you manage your policies and processes is an easy way to offer richer learning fast — without rebuilding the training you’ve already invested in.

If only there was one training platform that handled all three of these… 👀

‍👉 Get a demo.