Billionaire Clive Palmer gives staff luxury cars and holidays in a Christmas bonus bonanza

If you were planning to give your staff a big Christmas bonus as part of a brilliant retention strategy, then think again – you’ve just been outdone.

Mining billionaire Clive Palmer has set the Christmas bonus bar almost impossibly high by giving all 750 long-term workers at his Yabulu nickel refinery in north Queensland a luxury holiday for two to a resort in Fiji, plus a new Mercedes Benz car for 50 of his most valued employees.

And on Friday he topped it all off with a Christmas party that cost an estimated $2 million and featured more than 20 performing artists.

The largesse, which includes trips to a Queensland resort for 50 workers who have more recently joined the Yabulu business, is estimated to have cost Palmer $10 million.

But as Palmer told The Australian, he can afford it.

“These people have made a lot of money for me this year, and I thought I’d give some of it back,” he said.

“You can only sleep in one bed, have one meal at a time, drive the one car, and go out with the one woman – that is, if you’re sensible. I’ve got enough money to do all that, so I thought I’d give some away.”

While Palmer’s generosity is to some extent a by-product of his flamboyant personal style, there is a strong argument to be made that the employees at Yabulu have led an impressive turnaround.

Palmer purchased Yabulu from BHP Billiton in July 2009 for an undisclosed sum, just as BHP was considering shutting the plant.

But Palmer – aided by the second coming of the resources boom – has managed to turn around the business to the point where he claims it was $200 million “cash positive” in 2010.

Many of Palmer’s Mercedes Benz bonuses went to production workers, who he says have been instrumental in turning the business around.

“When we took over the plant we recognised that we didn’t know how to run the plant as well as the workforce. We let them go to do what they thought was best.”