A regional publishing boss has hailed the “many benefits” of home-working while also admitting that office closures have their “downsides.”

Archant content chief Jeremy Clifford discussed the pros and cons of remote working in a blog post after Reach plc announced plans to close all bar 15 of its offices around the country.

In the piece, Jeremy accepted publishers would have to make “tough decisions” about the cost of keeping offices open but called on the industry to be “honest” about the impact of the loss of tradtional newsrooms.

Jeremy made clear he was writing in a personal capacity and there is no suggestion that Archant plans to introduce more remote working or close offices.

In its announcement on Friday, Reach said it had decided to make the move after the past year saw most of its employees work from home due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Wrote Jeremy, pictured: “There are many benefits to home working. It will force managers to consider more flexible working requests – something many had previously resisted or begrudgingly accepted on the advice from HR.

“A better work-life balance, less commuting, the ability to attract a more varied and diverse workforce who couldn’t otherwise work for us – will all help to improve diversity in our newsrooms.

“Reach is not the only publisher to have conducted surveys of staff asking them their preferred mode of working for the future and will have found many will have reported a preference for working from home.”

Going on to discuss the downsides of office closures, Jeremy said: “Uppermost in my mind is how we can continue to mentor and develop our staff remotely. Working remotely is one thing – managing remotely is a completely different ball game.

“Spotting signs that people are struggling is hard enough in a newsroom, let alone via a video call. Providing an office working environment to people entering work for the first time is essential to help them to acclimatise to a new chapter in their lives.

“Giving quality training and support to new entrants, learning the ropes of the job, is so much easier under the watchful eye of a departmental manager – and when they are not on hand, the colleague sat in the nextdoor seat.

“Then, let us consider the loss of spontaneity that a newsroom offers. The spark of an idea, the callout for help for a headline or an intro, the casual conversations from which great story lines emerge.

“These, of course, can be replicated to some extent – but not totally. We have to be honest about this and face up to the fact that the traditional newsroom was a hothouse for great ideas, camaraderie, support and teamworking that will be diminished – despite any use of technology, such as Slack, Teams, Google or whatever you choose to use.”

“Most of the debate has focused on the loss to trainees of not working in newsrooms. However, the old hands I find, learn just as much from the new entrants about how to learn the new tricks our industry demands of them – something that will also be lost.

“On the plus side, we will see reporters more visible on their patches, working in their communities, out and about – or at least I hope so. The risk of reporters becoming invisible by working from home is a challenge we are going to have to tackle head-on as we break the habit of lockdown reporting.

“To successfully transition to more remote working, we need to build a flexible model. We need to classify those people who we want to be office-based, those who can easily operate remotely from home, and then build in an agile working arrangement for those falling in the middle.

“While offices may close, publishers need to recognise a need to bring teams together from time to time and to budget for temporary office space.

“Hot desking will be the new norm, and this needs to be encouraged. And, as I said, we need to work really hard to ensure those journalists who should be out and about, are actually out and about and being visible in their communities.

“The debate will continue for some time to come and especially as the lockdown restrictions are eased. We need to consult with staff, ask them about how they would like to work and for those of us running our businesses, have clarity about the benefits and disbenefits of remote working.

“One thing is certain, traditional newsrooms are a thing of the past.”

HTFP has approached Jeremy for further comment.