Sarah Karaces comes to InRange as a corporate trainer after a 25-year tenure at Tiffany & Co. Yes, that Tiffany & Co. Sarah lives in Randolph, NJ with her husband, daughter, and dog. Her son is in college at Rowan University. In her free time, she enjoys hiking and camping.
Sarah began working at Tiffany over the summer during her college years. A summer gig turned into working through the holidays to pick some extra hours of overtime. Her work was varied—warehouse operations, managing employees, and tying Tiffany bows on little blue boxes. While she was not allowed to roll around in piles of diamonds, she oversaw the influx of precious merchandise as the jewelry receiving area supervisor. This role also meant stewarding some of Tiffany’s most notable luxury items such as Superbowl rings and trophies.
The company recognized her hard work and dedication, and she was promoted to manager of global systems training, focused on perfecting the training regimen for retail workers. This position was a perfect blend of her operations experience in the warehouse and her education undergraduate major. She had to ensure teams were well-trained, and she also had to resolve friction from cultural differences and different styles of conducting business.
Every time the company launched a new retail system, the sales professionals had to re-adjust their day-to-day activities—from ringing a customer sale to back-of-the-house operations to accounting for merchandise. Sarah’s team would develop resource guides and facilitator-led instruction. Over time, they launched this training globally and would have to get all their documents translated. The first retail pilot of that new system was in China. Before she knew it, Sarah had been at Tiffany & Co. for 25 years.
When Tiffany & Co. began preparation for the LVMH acquisition last November, Sarah faced a new start after what seemed to be a lifelong career. Then, she saw the corporate training position at InRange. Sarah would be managing training initiatives as she had been at Tiffany, but with some operational responsibility for people management and human resources. She’s beyond excited to be further developing InRange’s training programs to ensure that teams are as well-informed and working collaboratively and efficiently on every project. As Sarah says:
"It’s very easy to work in a silo, and just be focused on your part of things. There really needs to be broader communication between all members of the team, so everyone is building and setting each other up for success."
As companies scale, training procedures should, too. Hands-on, individualized attention isn’t always possible, which is why making a high-quality, standardized training program is vital. Training programs need to work for junior team members with less experience in the field and team members who have years of work under their belts. A standardized training program can only take a trainee so far, which is why she is planning for a mentorship program.
InRange is the leading telecommunications project management company because of its effective processes, highly experienced people, and technology underpinning its operations. An effective training program must ensure everyone is up to speed and contributing at a high level. It’s not just about whether the employee can complete specific tasks after training. It’s also that team members understand the importance of shared responsibility and what it takes to deliver the best outcomes for customers.
This sort of thinking and experience is what sets Sarah up for great success. Thrilled about the creative prospects of this new challenge, Sarah is overflowing with ideas. In her words:
"I just get so excited. I feel like I can make an impact in so many directions–while working at a job for 25 years is great, just letting that go and embracing a new opportunity really gives you a renewed passion for what you do."
