Axel Springer CEO Mathias Dopfner plans to mandate that all staff spend at least four days per week in the office.
Speaking to The Sunday Times, Dopfner said he was a long-standing advocate of flexible working, but: “During Covid, that got out of control because it became just an alibi to not work at all or isolate yourself at home and get paranoid.”
The majority of publishers and staff in the UK favour hybrid working, with most companies typically mandating only two or three days per week according to Press Gazette research conducted in March.
Among the exceptions are Conde Nast, Tortoise Media, The Telegraph and DMG Media which require most staff to be in the office at least four days per week.
Office versus hybrid working has become a hugely emotive issue in publishing. Some view entirely office-based working as more productive and dynamic. But others point to the wasted time and expense of commuting and the benefits for recruitment and staff diversity of a hybrid approach (particularly when it comes to staff with parenting responsibilities).
Axel Springer’s media brands include Business Insider, Politico, Morning Brew, Bild and Welt.
Dopfner is the major shareholder, as well as CEO, along with Friede Springer (together the pair own 95% of the company).
On 29 April Axel Springer sold its classified advertising businesses Septstone and AVIV to KKR and CPP Investments for a reported €10bn.
At the time Dopfner said: “In the future, there will be only two types of companies: those that use artificial intelligence extensively to break new and better ground, and those that fail to grasp this and will therefore disappear.”
He told The Sunday Times that the impact of AI on Axel Springer will be huge: “Almost everything will be, in large parts or completely, taken over by bots.” But he said this will leave journalists more free to focus on “reporting” and “in-depth research”.
Expanding on recent job cuts at Business Insider which have seen more than 100 staff made redundant, Dopfner told The Sunday Times there will be more investment in the business and less “clickbait” as it moves towards building a smaller but more loyal audience.
Dopfner told The Sunday Times: “The likelihood that we are going to make acquisitions is very high. We also would like to launch new businesses.”
Dopfner said in 2023 that the company’s acquisitions strategy was “digital first” and “digital only”.
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