Google cancelled plans to fly entire Dublin staff to Las Vegas for Christmas office party

Many of Dublin's Magic Circle law firms, Big Four accounting firms and financial institutions held black-tie dinners in the city's most luxurious hotels this month, while Facebook took over a whole shopping centre.

As reported here last week, Google topped the leaderboard with a no-expense-spared €300,000 New York-themed party at the RDS, where employees enjoyed a ferris wheel, ice rink, an entire room dedicated to balloons and goodie bags that included smart watches.

But Google's earlier party plans had imagined something even more extravagant.

The world's biggest search engine intended to fly its Irish workforce - about 3,000 people - to Las Vegas for the weekend.

A last-minute change of plans by management scuppered the Sin City shindig. But by that point hundreds of Googlers had already made arrangements to stay on in the US for Christmas, fly home via other cities, visit friends and family or go shopping.

The company decided to honour their flights - meaning lots of employees enjoyed a bonus of free flights to the US this Christmas.

Businesses are increasingly turning to employee entertainment and unusual perks to attract talent as the jobs market heats up again, experts say.

Three-fifths of Irish workers were invited to a work Christmas party this year and the bill was mostly picked up the boss, new research has shown.

More than half of respondents said a cancelled Christmas party would lower morale.

But cash is still king - nine out of 10 said they would prefer a Christmas bonus to a party. Only 20pc of us actually get one.

"If you offer a software engineer in their early 30s a fantastic awe-inspiring Christmas party or alternatively a higher salary, they will go with the higher salary every single time," said Brightwater Recruitment's head of IT recruitment Hugh McCarthy.

"The Google and Facebook Christmas parties sounded like fun and entertaining end of year showpieces for staff," said McCarthy.

"But a Christmas party is a one-off and fleeting event. From working with technology staff on a day-to-day basis and seeing their motivations, the truth of it is most people are motivated by better pay, better bonus prospects and better work/life balance, such as remote working opportunities."