Do you think REWS is actually useful for retention?
I've always thought that REWS was much more beneficial for recruiting, in the phase when they walk you around campus and show you all the impressive public spaces, and talk about all the nice services they offer. The one thing they don't show you is the huge, loud, windowless open office space where the team you'll be joining actually works. And by constantly shrinking that space, removing cube walls, and making workplaces more and more miserable, I think they actually hurt retention.
When I left Google in June of 2015, my team was just about to be transitioned from an older building on the main campus where we had actual cubes with walls (nevermind that there were already 6 people per cube) and a few shared offices, into a modern design in Sunnvale, with just a giant room with tables and little/no dividers. Between loosing access to all the cool things on the main campus (cafe choice, gyms, events like TGIF) and the new, crappy workspace, it just seemed like a gigantic downgrade.
I now work from home in the middle of nowhere, where I have an office with a door I can close, and a window for natural light. (and working remotely was something else that was not possible at Google)
I've always thought that REWS was much more beneficial for recruiting, in the phase when they walk you around campus and show you all the impressive public spaces, and talk about all the nice services they offer. The one thing they don't show you is the huge, loud, windowless open office space where the team you'll be joining actually works. And by constantly shrinking that space, removing cube walls, and making workplaces more and more miserable, I think they actually hurt retention.
When I left Google in June of 2015, my team was just about to be transitioned from an older building on the main campus where we had actual cubes with walls (nevermind that there were already 6 people per cube) and a few shared offices, into a modern design in Sunnvale, with just a giant room with tables and little/no dividers. Between loosing access to all the cool things on the main campus (cafe choice, gyms, events like TGIF) and the new, crappy workspace, it just seemed like a gigantic downgrade.
I now work from home in the middle of nowhere, where I have an office with a door I can close, and a window for natural light. (and working remotely was something else that was not possible at Google)