 Hello, my name is Miklos Gaspar and I'm in charge of digital communication at the IAEA. This is the third in a series of lives where we discuss what it is like to work at the IAEA and what it's like to get a job here. Today's topic is what it is like to move to and live in Vienna and I have three colleagues who will help you learn more about this process. You'll be able to ask questions during this live. Please put them in the comment box and then we'll answer these questions at the end of the session, along with other questions we received over the last few weeks on this topic. So let me introduce the panel. First, we have Carmen Good, a project manager in our nuclear energy department, who moved here from her native Australia earlier this year. Then Victor Ovino from Kenya, who works in our human health division on studying the use of isotopes in measuring things like vitamin A intake in the body. And last but not least, we have Neva Badalamenta from Slovenia and she's our guru, our top HR expert on anything to do with staff entitlements and she'll be answering some of your questions at the end of the session. So to start with, let me ask you, Carmen, what it was like for you to move to Vienna and relocate? Thanks, Miklas. Well, thank you for the introduction. For myself, I've made a quite large move moving to Austria from Australia in April this year, which was quite a crazy time. I've actually moved over with my partner and my two dogs and we decided to do a bit of downsizing as part of the move and not take off. So it's been a big change on the agency's household effects relocation policies. We actually moved with four suitcases. So it's been a big change for us. We've come from a pretty small town in outback Australia. We have a population of about 900 people to this big city of Vienna. So it's a really big change. Additionally, for myself, it's my first time working overseas and it's also my first time to Europe. So we had a lot of questions and a lot of things we needed to find out as part of the moving process. But it was also, I guess, lots of things that we needed to do to actually move away from our country but also move to a new country. There were certainly times when it kind of felt overwhelming and there was a lot to do. But we found that by talking to people in the agency and also talking to some of our friends and family that live and work overseas, we get some really good guidance and advice and answer all of those questions that we weren't sure about. Ultimately, it was a big task, but when you break it down, it's actually lots of little things to do. And before you know it, you're actually packing up your belongings. You're actually jumping on a plane and then it's your first day and you're moving into your new house and new country. Very good. Thank you. I'll be asking you about some of those more things. But for us, Victor, what was your experience like moving here in 2015? Thank you. So for me, it was kind of mixed for me as a person. It was coming to Vienna, which I had been coming to before because I got grants from the IEA to do small research projects. So I used to come to Vienna like every two years, so I was familiar. But for my family, this was a very big move, which meant a lot of unknowns. So for us, it was a mix of excitement and anxiety. But there were a lot of positive things for the first time we were paid for in business class. And we arrived in Vienna, of course, as Carmen says, with a lot of questions. But on arrival, we got a lot of support, including being given some settling in grant, which made our life very, very easy. And also, we had a lot of questions around where to stay, how to go about it, and positively right from Nairobi where we were moving from. There was a lot of support from the human resource, contact person that was introduced to us. Yeah, so but a lot of anxiety and excitement. But after all the support, we managed to settle and all is history. Thank you. I know you have daughters who are school age. Could you tell us a bit about what it was like for them to change school? What are schools like in Vienna for foreigners? Yeah, thank you very much. So as you know, Kenya is an English speaking country. And one of our worries was how would we settle in in a German speaking country, but positively when we came, we identified the Vienna International School, which is English speaking. And the worry was how would the children integrate, would they find new new friends and how that would be. Positively, it seems the school system is very good for children. They settle in very quickly and they make friends from all over the world and they became happier before we did. Yeah, so so the experience for the children is quite very good. That sense. Thank you. Thank you, Victor. Neva, let me turn to you now to, you know, these schools that Victor talked about are quite expensive. So what help is the agency offering staff with school age children? Thank you, Miklos, for that question. The agency has a entitlement which is called Education Grant. With that Education Grant, the agency contributes to tuition fees, including application acceptance type expenses, as well in some cases, mother tongue tuition for the children up to a maximum limit of 40,600 US dollars per child per year. Within that ceiling, the reimbursement levels are anywhere between 86 to 61%, depending on the cost of the school. Thank you. Perhaps I can add a bit from my experience because unlike in Victor's case, my children had not been educated English before we moved to Vienna. So I'd just like to share with you all that these schools are very much set up to integrating kids whose English is not their first language, who perhaps don't speak English so well. And in fact, two of my three children have graduated with, you know, high grades in these English-speaking schools here. Carmen, what was it like to find a place? The agency has a housing team and housing services that were actually really fantastic with helping us find a property in Vienna. I reached out to them quite early in the process after onboarding, and they made available to me a handbook about Vienna, but also has information in there about what renting is like in Vienna. And then fantastically, they signed me up to their webpage, which actually gives prospective employees access to, I think there was over 400 properties at the time when I was looking that are available for rent in Vienna. It's got an amazing process that you filter by, you know, area or property type or cost and lots of different parameters that you might be looking for for yourself. And through that process, I was able to marry down my search to a couple of properties and make direct contact with landlords about getting a rental contract in place. For myself personally, the part from the agency's housing team that was the most helpful was the fact that they will help you with preparing rental contracts. That gave me massive peace of mind in signing up a contract in a new country. In a new language also. Contracts are in German. Yes, so they gave us an English translation as well, which was super helpful. And I had that peace of mind, and ultimately I was able to secure a furnished rental apartment in Vienna before I even left Australia, which gave me, you know, a destination and took a big weight off my mind in moving. Thank you. And perhaps, Neva, you could add to this that there's again a subsidy that the agency provides staff with new to Vienna. Correct. So we are cognizant of the fact that someone who's a newcomer to Vienna or any other city that we have our offices in will in general rent a place that will be, that will cost more than someone that has been in the area longer. And to ensure greater degree of equity, the agency does provide rental subsidy. The calculation itself is somewhat complicated. There is a personal threshold established based on which staff members are expected to pay for the rental themselves. If the rental amount itself is above that limit and up to a maximum reasonable rent that's also established by the agency, there will be a percentage reimbursement made to that amount. The percentage itself starts at 80% for the first four years and then tapers off to 60, 40 and 20 down to the seventh year, at which point the rental subsidy then stops being payable. Thank you. Thank you. So far, we focused on what it's like to relocate to Vienna. Let's not talk a bit about what it is like to live here. Victor, what's been your experience? Yeah, thank you very much. I think let me start with the Vienna itself. I have never lived in a more peaceful place where you didn't worry about security much compared to where I come from. For example, it is made to keep you fit, a lot of places to bike and to walk. So Vienna is a place to be and always ranked the first city best to live in the world. But now, coming back to the work-related stay for the past six years, what I can say is, I think there is a lot of collegial support right from the senior most management to my direct line manager. So this has made my life very easy because you want to wake up to go to a job where you feel at the end of the day and go home satisfied. And as far as I'm concerned, that has been the case for the past six years I've been here. So being in Vienna has been a pleasure. I've worked in other places and I would rank being here as one of my best experiences so far. Thank you. Thank you. Garmin, you already mentioned that you moved from a small town to Vienna. So what has it been like for you? What is it like for you to live here? Exactly like Victor said, a very safe place to live, even compared to coming from Australia as well. I have two very under-employed guard dogs at the moment that have got a lot of time on their hands. For me, it's amazing the cultural offerings, the architecture, the history, music. There's so much to see and do. I think I have every weekend booked up until winter at this point. And the outdoor lifestyle is pretty fantastic as well, which I think everyone is especially enjoying at the moment. Yeah, it's honestly, it's so beautiful. It's so clean and it's so safe. It's just this feeling, it's a really welcoming place to come. Thank you. Neva, again, over to you. Are there any other topics that we've not yet covered that the agency offers to people to make it easier to move here? I'm sorry about that. Yeah, in terms of the salary benefits and entitlements that the agency is offering, maybe I can speak a little bit more to that effect. One thing that is certainly important to note is that the salaries of the agency are determined within the United Nations Common System, and they are tax-free. We already mentioned the relocation package and the visa assistance. The relocation package includes a lump sum for the ticket. It includes removal of your personal household effects as well as settling in grant, which Victor mentioned. Some of these will depend on the type of contract that you have been issued with. So not all benefits and entitlements apply to all types of contract, but speaking about the fixed-term contracts, all these certainly are in the package. In addition to that, social security, health insurance and pension, and of course, dependency allowances. So if you are moving to Vienna and you have dependents, spouse and children, particularly dependent spouse who may not be able to work in Vienna, there is a spousal allowance paid by the agency as well. In addition to that, we provide home leave and family visit travel, and we also have a very generously policy. Thank you. You mentioned spouses. One of the questions we've just received from our audience is how easy it is for spouses who move with our employees to get jobs in Vienna. So the agency itself will assist with the dependent's residence status, and with that residence status, spouses will be able to have access to the Austrian market. Carmen mentioned it is a very international city, so there are quite a few big international companies in the area as well, so that is certainly one possibility. In addition to that, the agency itself does not preclude spousal employment as long as there is no direct supervisory line. Thank you. Carmen, you mentioned to me earlier when we chatted that your husband is looking for work here, so what has been his experience? Yes, my husband before coming to Vienna was working as a Radiation Safety Advisor back home, so he was obviously his preference would be to be able to work for the agency as well. So he's been applying for positions coming up, and it's obviously a very transparent process and going through the process like all the other candidates. There's no preference for spouses, which is the way it should be in an organisation like this. But what's been fantastic and in us making the decision to come here was that we were aware that he would have that residency status, and so we've been able to cast the network more broadly to the Austrian labour market for applications for jobs. Certainly native English speaker, unfortunately we don't have any German yet, which does reduce the market, but there's lots of jobs out there and that's just a matter of persevering I think. Thank you. Another question we received, but Carmen just answered this by her example, whether you have to speak German to apply for a job here? So the agency's working language is English. As you can see this is how we do business. There are other official languages of course, but majority of the time in Vienna we will speak English to each other. Thank you. Another question we received is about COVID-19. In my home country the situation of COVID-19 is critical and there's limited travel. Is there a way still for me to be considered for a job at the IAEA? You can certainly be considered for the job at the IAEA. We are encouraging everyone that we hire to report to Vienna to take up their duties. We as the agency comply with the local national regulations in terms of COVID restrictions at the moment. These restrictions are more or less alleviated. It's hard to answer that question broadly. Changes to COVID regulations are coming on a daily basis. If you're hired for a job and at the time when you're supposed to be reporting to Vienna HR will certainly reach out to you and work with you to make sure that we can find a workable solution. That's about moving here, but I think we can say that there's no impact on your country's COVID situation in terms of the competition when you've applied for a job. If you're to apply and then you might have to start working remotely, I think that's what Neva is saying. There's no way to get you here. Okay, good. Neva, anything else that we should mention before we close? I think that was it from my side. Thank you for the question. Okay, very good. Well, then this has been our third session. Please show it to your friends. They can watch the recording. Also, we are looking to do more sessions like this. If you have recommendations on what topics to cover, please put them in the comment box. As I said, this is the third session, so there have been two already. If you miss them, again, you'll find the links in the comment box on our sessions on applying to the IEA from non-nuclear field and also what it is like to work for international organization versus the private sector. Thank you very much. We'll be back next month. Bye-bye.