His team calls him Johnual 🚗

We've been busier than Tom Holland's agent this summer — dare we say an Odyssey? As back-to-school season kicks in, let's make sure your processes aren't covered in cobwebs (not even the fun Spider-Man kind). 🕷️

On the syllabus this month: a car wash that made training so fun people actually pay attention, tips for running all-hands your team won't zone out of, and a new way to stay in-the-know inside your account.

Oh, and one more thing — your first look at what's next for Trainual. 👀

📝 REPORT CARDS ARE COMING

Feedback shouldn't feel like a surprise

Nearly half of employees hear from their manager just a few times a year. No wonder reviews feel like ambushes.

Most managers care — that's not the issue. The gap is frequency. When feedback becomes routine instead of rare, the hard conversations get a whole lot easier.

Here's how to systemize feedback for your team:

• 📚 The ultimate guide to feedback. From starting the conversation to navigating the tough ones — this article covers everything.
• 💜 Connect before you correct. Hear from Trainual's VP of marketing on why rapport comes first. Here's how she builds it.
• 🏆 Your team needs gold stars too. If you only show up when something's wrong, your team stops listening. Here's how we bake praise into our system.
  

🔐 Training. Operations. And soon, performance — all under one roof. See how they connect.

GEE, IT IS PRETTY GREEN OVER HERE

How to stay in the know (without doing the most)

When you’re responsible for keeping people, processes, and progress on track, knowing what’s going on can feel like a job in itself. Who joined? Who changed roles? What does the team need to know? And wait — did someone actually update that in all the places? 😅

The trick isn’t getting better at chasing it all down. It’s setting things up so you don’t have to. Here are two big ways to do it:

🔗 Let your systems do the talking
If your HR or payroll system already knows when someone joins, leaves, or changes roles, your training platform should know, too. Connecting the two means less duplicate data entry, fewer outdated employee records, and one less system to babysit.

And yep, Trainual does that. We connect with HR & payroll platforms to keep employee data flowing automatically — new providers include iSolved, HiBob, Humaans, Sequoia One, UKG Ready, and more. Many even support multi-entity syncing, so teams with multiple locations can keep everyone accounted for.

🙋 Borrow a few good ideas while you’re at it
You also don’t have to figure out every people and training challenge from scratch. Find other ops leaders who’ve already wrestled with the same questions, steal their best ideas (politely, of course), and see what’s actually working for teams like yours.

That’s why we built the Trainual Community — a place for training and ops leaders to swap ideas, ask questions, and join live workshops and Q&As. File this under: The perks of officially joining the Trainual train. 🚂

Turns out, staying on top of more doesn’t have to mean doing more. 😎

🚗 WASH. RINSE. TRAINUAL.

His team loves Trainual so much they renamed him

Meet John Sproul — or as everyone at Camel Express Car Wash calls him, "Johnual." Yeah, the nickname stuck so hard that people across the car wash industry think it's his real name. There's even a Slack avatar.

Camel Express went from one location to six in Nashville, cut turnover from 175% to 62% in an industry where 175% is normal, and built a training culture so strong that "we gotta make a Trainual for that" is something people say out loud — even when someone locks themselves out of their car.

Here's what you can steal from Camel Express:

• ⚠️ Make it fun, or they won't remember it. Boring training is almost worse than no training. When John hears someone chuckle during onboarding, he knows they're paying attention.
• 📱 Put training where the work happens. 80% of Camel's team uses Trainual on mobile. NFC tags on equipment let them tap their phone and pull up troubleshooting on the spot — no hammer-dialing a manager.
• 🤝 Put your voice in the training. Screen-record yourself walking through processes. New hires who hear their manager's voice early build trust faster — and they're more likely to own mistakes than ghost you.

👉 This one's a smooth ride.

🎙️ GUESS WHO'S BACK?

Organize Chaos podcast returns with season 4

Chris, Jonathan, and Sasha are back behind the mics — and the chemistry is exactly what you'd expect from a decade of building together. If you're running a team, managing people, or trying to keep your growing team on the same page, Organize Chaos has something for you. 🎁

Eight episodes in and we're just getting warmed up. But if you only listen to one, make it this: how to stop losing your team halfway through your all-hands.

Our all-hands used to be painful. Here's what we changed:

• 🎤 We killed the 3-hour live meeting. Everything goes out async in Trainual first. The live meeting? Just Q&A and praise. Shorter, sharper, and people actually retain it.
• 🎯 The spiciest question goes first. Before every all-hands, we brainstorm the hardest thing someone could ask — then Chris leads with it. Tension gone. Trust built.
• 🎉 Make it fun or nobody shows up. Themed costumes, cash prizes, SNL-style kickoff videos. Chris Ronzio wore a bald cap once. Your team should actually want to be there.

👉 Binge the new season.
📩 Got a topic you want covered? Hit up chris@trainual.com — he reads every one.