Working from home - but across borders

Mr Krischanitz, you are a Senior Manager at Milliman with an international focus. What exactly are your responsibilities?

Milliman opened a new location in Austria in May 2020 to further strengthen its presence in Europe. The German-speaking countries of Germany, Austria and Switzerland are working very closely together on this, and this broader setup has already had great success. My task is, on the one hand, to manage the Austrian market and bring the international know-how that characterizes Milliman to Austria and, on the other, to add the dimension of non-life business to Milliman's competencies in Germany.

You are based  in your ‘home office’ or  in your office in Vienna. Especially for your activities in the German market, how important is a certain physical proximity for your work at the moment? 

Actuarial consulting is very closely linked to mutual trust. Trust in competence, trust in seriousness, trust in reliability. Once this trust has been established, physical proximity is no longer so important, but in order to build up or strengthen this trust, a certain physical proximity - in other words, a real face-to-face meeting - is indispensable. The project work itself can easily be done from a distance.

Are there any subject areas or issues that, in your view - even in the area of actuarial consulting - might no longer require "on-site" work at all in the future?

Practice shows that remote working works wonderfully. For many clients, we have had very limited access to their premises for almost two years now, and the projects have not suffered significantly as a result. In fact, there are advantages for both sides, mainly resulting from savings in travel expenses as well as travelling time.

You started  your job in the middle of the Covid pandemic. How was it for you to start your job?

For me personally, there was a ‘gold-rush’ feeling. When I started, there was no office in Vienna, it was lockdown in Austria, all I had was a mobile phone and a laptop . I started in my basement, alone in a new market, and had no way of reaching out to the outside world. That was already an exciting moment. During that time, I learned to appreciate social media a lot.

What is your assessment: How will the working world develop - especially spatially - especially for actuaries, risk managers and data scientists - in the next few years and which working model do you personally prefer for yourself?

The pandemic has forced us to institutionalize remote working, working from home, something that was previously frowned upon. In the meantime, hardly anyone disputes that this way of working brings many advantages. Especially in Germany, where the insurance industry is so geographically dispersed, it is now possible to access resources from other parts of Germany, or even Europe. We will strive to retain these advantages. I am therefore assuming a working model that will include a large proportion of working from  home. As a family man working in consulting as I do, this will bring an additional quality of increased closeness to the family.

Will the "new normal" also have a greater impact on choice of employer? Will members of the profession perhaps even gradually become much more internationally oriented - without needing to plan a move abroad?

On the supply side, the current labor market for actuaries currently offers almost endless opportunities. Actuaries have already been applying for jobs across borders, but this trend has now become even stronger and your home address has become less important. Young people are now also really demanding their new-found work-life balance, and the question about working from home arrangements in the company usually comes before the question about salary. Employers can benefit from this if they position themselves accordingly.

Finally, a personal question: What do you do in your free time to offset your professional activities?

The ideal balance to a very top-heavy sedentary job is physical exercise in the fresh air. I go running several times a week, supplement it with cycling from time to time, and in spring I'm already looking forward to my first sessions in the  garden.