Chanel Executive Visits SPIKE Virtual Enterprise Company

Huntington High School’s “SPIKE” Virtual Enterprise company hosted French luxury fashion house Chanel’s Megan Glickman last Friday for business advice and motivation. The session left students inspired and ready to tackle the many challenges it will face over the coming months.

“I used to work with Ms. Glickman at Chanel back in my corporate America days,” Huntington business teacher Paige Furman said. “Fifteen years later, she is still working there, now as the head of O&P (organization and people) corporate integration and operations. She spends her days traveling the world building O&P expertise and operations, but was gracious enough to take some time off to speak to our class.”

In Virtual Enterprise, the classroom is transformed into a business. Students become employees and work throughout the school year creating and running a firm. They are grouped into departments, including marketing, sales, IT and design, accounting and organization and people, formerly known as human resources.

“This year, my goal is to bring in executives from all departments to come in and speak to the students about their real-world jobs and experience,” Mrs. Furman said. “Ms. Glickman was the ideal speaker to teach the students all things ‘organization and people’ or O&P.”

Rather than engaging in a formal presentation, Ms. Glickman sat down with the students in an open forum setting, which felt more like a conversation than a lecture.

“The students and I were so impressed with her background and business acumen,” Ms. Furman said. “She touched on the significance of the O&P department and its role within an organization.”

The Huntington VE students were mesmerized by their visitor. “Ms. Glickman stressed the importance of connecting with employees, especially during the post-Covid hybrid work world we all live in now,” Mrs. Furman said. “When asked how our O&P department should go about training and retaining the best employees, she gave us three pieces of advice: Make sure your employees love your company/product so that they are passionate about it and connect to it. Make sure your employees have positive connections with their co-workers; no one will want to leave a company if they love the product and feel that their coworkers are friends. Lastly, the use of technology and communication is critical. While most companies employ a work-from-home model these days, Chanel still requires a mandatory ‘connection day’ on Tuesdays. Employees can work wherever and whenever as long as they get their jobs done, but they must all report to the office on Tuesdays. It keeps connections strong, decreases employee burnout, and boosts employee morale.”

When asked about certain traits she looks for in hiring an employee, Ms. Glickman noted that ambition, the ability to problem solve and a curious/engaged mind are all at the top of the list. “She went on to talk about the benefits of internships and networking as well and gave our class some great tips on doing both,” Mrs. Furman said.

The SPIKE company team members all enjoyed the visit. “I really learned and understood the real meaning of HR and how to keep your employees positive and on the right track” said Tommy Kline, SPIKE’s vice president of human resources.

Ms. Glick left the Huntington students with plenty to ponder. “One of the takeaways from this presentation was that a big part of getting conducting business is structure and routine,” said Connor Fox, SPIKE’s chief financial officer.