Previous Supply Excellence posts have highlighted the challenges of hiring and retaining skilled supply management professionals and the increase in talent poaching as a result of these issues. Last week, former General Electric chief Jack Welch and his wife, Suzy, former editor at Harvard Business Review (HBR), chimed in with simple, straightforward advice: the best way to attract great talent is to be a preferred employer.

The Welch’s are quick to point out that you cannot become a preferred employer overnight. And attaining the moniker of preferred employer does not guarantee that you will always remain so. Just think of the .bombs — or Enron — which, in the 1990s, wooed employees with strong brand recognition, energetic cultures, and gobs of stock options that held the promise of becoming independently wealthy. Says Welch: “It took IBM about 30 years to earn its gold-standard reputation in the 1970s [and] less than a decade to los it.”

Empower keynoter Doug Smock last week brought this message home to supply management executive attendees. ”I was always concerned about the sustainability of supply management excellence,” said the co-author of the best-selling supply management book Straight to the Bottomline. “When I was editor at Purchasing Magazine, it seemed that each time a company won Purchasing’s Medal of Excellence, the supply management team would soon dismantle or be fired. It was like the Sports Illustrated curse. This said to me that the supply management leadership and agenda was not well aligned with the goals of the organization and senior executives, like the CEO and CFO.”

Welch’s complete tips for becoming and remaining a preferred employer are acessible here through Business Week Online. A podcast on the subject is also available here. I have summarized the six steps below, but recommend that you read or listen to the full commentary:

1. Preferred employers demonstrate a real commitment to continuous learning.
2. Preferred employers are meritocracies. Pay and promotions are tightly linked performance, and rigorous appraisal systems consistently make people aware of where they stand.
3. Preferred employers not only allow people to take risks but also celebrate those who do. And they don’t shoot those who try but fail.
4. Preferred employers understand that what is good for society is also good for business.
5. Preferred employers keep their hiring standards tight.  They make candidates work hard to join the ranks by meeting strict criteria that center around intelligence and previous experience and by undergoing an arduous interview process.
6. Preferred companies are profitable and growing.

Use these points to do a self-assessment of your company. Identify areas where your company or supply management organization is lacking. And define strategies for closing these gaps. Previous Supply Excellence posts include approaches other companies have used to improve many of the above areas, including, sustainable supply chain strategies, training, and competitive pay.