(Time to read this Blog is about 3 minutes)

Before we get to the main topic, here are a few things to get you thinking or smiling:

1. My Biz Quote of the week:
   “As a business owner, leader or manager, you are the source of passion, energy and joy in your business or department.  No one will love the business and your customers more than you do.  If you don’t love it anymore, do everyone a favour and move on!”                                                                         
   …Donald Cooper.
    
2. Quick Biz Tip:
   Now is the time to start working on your 2026 Business Plan:
    
   Your 2026 Business Plan should be completed by December 1^st, so that you ‘hit the ground running’. It will take 6 to 8 weeks to collaborate with your Team, create and effectively communicate your 2026 Business Plan, so now’s the time to start.  As a business owner, leader or manager, this is one of your most important responsibilities.

   There’s lots of confusion and disagreement as to what an effective Business Plan actually is, so I spent months coming up with a Biz Tool that lays it all out for you. Click Here to download it, no charge.  
    

3. Fun fact: This year, Toronto Blue Jays fans consumed 826,308 hot dogs at ‘Loonie Dog Tuesday’ home games.  At 80 home games total, this is 103,288 hot dogs per game…a franchise record.
    
4. Dining out declines and restaurants are struggling:  The price of dining out has become ‘eye-watering’ for many. According to a recent Restaurants Canada Report, 75% of Canadians say they’re not eating out as often, to save money.  For Canadians aged 18 to 34, that number jumps to 81% who are eating out less often.
    
   The same Report states that 41% of Canadian restaurants are either losing money or just breaking even.
    
5. Obese vs undernourished children. A new report by UNICEF, the United Nations’ Children’s Agency, reveals that the number of school-aged children who are obese is, for the first time, higher than those who are severely undernourished.
    
   A major cause is a diet high in sugar, fat and processed foods…and a lack of physical activity.
    
6. AI update. We keep hearing that AI will change almost everything we do in business.  But most of the business owners and managers I speak with have very little understanding of  what this really means…and how to embrace AI.  So, each week, I’ll deliver a few examples to spark your creative juices.
    
   1. An AI powered diagnostic program named Delphi-2M will allow doctors to predict if their patients are likely to get one or more of 1,000 different diseases including cancer, Alzheimer’s and heart attacks.
   2. US company, Reframe Systems, is building micro-factories to produce modular housing components. They use AI and robotics to significantly speed up construction and reduce costs. These scalable factories address both the US housing shortage and the labor shortage by enabling local production of affordable, high-quality homes.

Now, to this week’s important topic:

Smart businesses use pre-employment Tests for screening job candidates:

The cost of hiring people who aren’t a good fit, or who can’t or won’t perform is huge.  And, yet many businesses have no effective screening process…and it’s killing them.

In addition to asking a carefully crafted list of questions to discover if each job candidate is a good fit for your culture and values and can do the job you’re hiring them to do, smart companies use a number of pre-employment Tests. 

Below is a List of some of those Tests:  

1. Skill Assessment Test /  Work Simulation Testing.
2. Job Knowledge Test.
3. Cognitive Ability Test.
4. Personality Test.
5. Emotional Intelligence Test.
6. Integrity Test.
7. Physical Ability Test  (if applicable).
8. Drug Test…especially for safety-sensitive jobs.  Check with your Provincial or State laws re drug testing.
9. Background Check.  Get written permission from the job applicant.  If they refuse, that may tell you all that you need to know.

Which ones do you use?  Which ones should you be using?  If you have a full-time HR person or Department, or if you use a part-time HR Consultant and they haven’t recommended or implemented Tests like these, you need to have a serious talk with them.

For each of these Tests, go online for more specific info, or ask your ‘HR hero’ or industry Association for their input on which specific Test will be most effective for you.  There is a cost to using these Tests, but the cost of hiring the wrong people is huge! 

That’s it for this week…

Live brilliantly and be kind to each other!       

Donald Cooper 

Donald Cooper speaks and coaches internationally on management, marketing, and profitability.  He can be reached by email at donald@donaldcooper.com in Toronto, Canada.