E771 | Why You Need A Staff Christmas Party

As the year winds down, it’s easy to get lost in the hustle of closing out the quarter, finalizing year-end reports, and planning for the next year. But one tradition you shouldn’t overlook is hosting a Christmas party for your clinic. It’s more than just a festive gathering; it’s an opportunity to build your team culture, show appreciation for your staff, and create lasting memories.

Doc Danny recently shared his insights on this topic on the PT Entrepreneur Podcast, reflecting on how hosting a Christmas party transformed his practice and strengthened his team. Here’s why you should consider doing the same.

1. Build a Stronger Team Culture

A Christmas party isn’t just an event—it’s a chance for your staff to connect outside of work. When your team spends time together in a relaxed, fun environment, it fosters camaraderie and helps build friendships.

As Doc Danny explained, “One of the best indicators of whether someone will stick around in your business is if they have friends at work.” A great Christmas party can create opportunities for those friendships to grow, making your clinic a place where people genuinely enjoy working.

2. Celebrate Your Team’s Hard Work

The end of the year is the perfect time to reflect on everything your team has accomplished. Taking your staff to a fantastic dinner or hosting a thoughtful gathering shows that you value their contributions.

For Doc Danny, this was a key tradition in his clinic. “It’s a fantastic feeling to spoil your staff and take care of them. It’s something you work hard to be able to do, and you should enjoy that moment.”

3. Creative Christmas Bonuses Make a Big Impact

Giving a Christmas bonus is a common tradition, but how you give it can make all the difference. Doc Danny shared how he transitioned from adding bonuses to payroll to handing out cash in a festive way.

“We put $1,000 in cash inside a William Sonoma peppermint bark tin. It was so fun to see their reactions—it felt more meaningful and personal than just a number in their paycheck.”

Bonuses like this can offset holiday expenses for your staff and show them how much you appreciate their hard work throughout the year.

4. Celebrate Your Own Success as a Business Owner

Hosting a Christmas party isn’t just for your team—it’s also a chance to celebrate your own achievements. Owning a business comes with plenty of challenges, and being able to treat your staff to a fun evening or a thoughtful bonus is a milestone worth recognizing.

“It’s one of the things I miss most about running my own practice,” Doc Danny admitted. “That feeling of taking care of your team and seeing their joy—it’s something really special.”

Make It Happen

Whether you’re running a small clinic or managing a growing team, hosting a Christmas party doesn’t have to be extravagant. A nice dinner, a small bonus, or a thoughtful gathering can go a long way in showing your team how much you care.

Investing in your team’s happiness and building a positive culture pays dividends far beyond the holiday season. It strengthens your clinic, improves retention, and gives everyone a chance to reflect on the year together.

So, as you wrap up 2024, consider starting a new tradition with your clinic’s Christmas party. It’s a small step that can make a big impact for your team—and for you.

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Podcast Transcript

 Danny: Hey, real quick, if you're serious about starting or growing your cash based practice, I want to formally invite you to go to Facebook and join our PT entrepreneurs Facebook group. This is a group of over 6, 000 providers all over the country. And it's a pretty amazing place to start to get involved in the conversation.

Hope to see you there soon. Hey, are you a physical therapist looking to leverage your skill set in a way that helps you create time and financial freedom for yourself and your family? If so, you're in the right spot. My name is Danny Matta and over the last 15 years I've done pretty much everything you can in the profession.

I've been a staff PT I've been an active duty military officer physical therapist. I've started my own cash practice I've sold that cash practice and to date my company physical therapy biz has helped over a thousand clinicians start grow and scale their own Cash practices. So if this sounds like something you want to do listen up because i'm here to help you Hey, what's going on?

Dr. Danny here with the PT entrepreneur podcast. And today, look, we're talking about why you got to have a Christmas party for your clinic. And this is something that, um, when we opened our practice, my wife and I, the first year it was just us, right? But the next year. Uh, we actually had two staff members our second Christmas.

And what was fun for us was we'd never, ever owned a business. We'd actually never worked for a company that like had a Christmas party. I mean, I was in the army, so, uh, I guess we sort of had a Christmas party, but it wasn't like. It was basically, you know, at the clinic over lunch, somebody brought in some cake, usually, uh, maybe it was like potluck or whatever, but you know, whatever we see, you see like these Christmas movies with have these awesome Christmas parties and as a small business, like you can't obviously do something crazy like that, but you sure as hell can take your staff out to like an awesome dinner and, uh, and you can spend time together and, and, and put some effort into it.

Yeah. And here's why I think this is really important and it's, it's twofold. Number one, if you make like these mandatory staff, um, uh, like events fun, then it doesn't feel like work and it shouldn't feel like work, right? You're, you're going to go do something fun. You're going to go to a nice restaurant.

You're going to go somewhere where, you know, it's, it's going to be worth them. their spouse and they can meet everybody else and they can spend time together. And like, that's such a great way to build your culture. It's such a great way to just have some fun with your staff and enjoy being around your staff.

Um, one thing that we, uh, always did and started doing this, I think it wasn't that year. It was the following year. Um, is I always wanted to like, give a Christmas bonus to people, mainly because of, uh, Uh, National Lampoon's Christmas vacation. I just was like, yeah, Christmas bonus. It's that important. If it's that important to them, it must be important.

And so what we did was we just like added it to their payroll and man, it didn't hit very well. I mean, it was like, Oh, cool. We've got a bonus, but then, yeah, then the bonus gets like taxed more. Uh, and it's not the same, you know, they just kind of see it like a little number. So the following year we decided, all right, we're going to, we're going to give cash out.

So any cash we got in the clinic, we basically like just divided it up. And, uh, that's what we gave out to our staff. And it was like basically like right at a thousand dollars like per staff member. And we put it in a William Sonoma Christmas gift card. Uh, and, uh, there was, um, Peppermint Bark, I should say, Williams Sonoma Peppermint Bark Christmas Tin, which is awesome already.

And then we just put a little envelope in there with, um, it was a thousand bucks in there. And the, that was like such a different experience. Response. It was amazing. Like it was huge for them to see, uh, holy shit, this is like a thousand bucks in cash, right? And I don't know, maybe cash isn't as usable now as it was, but, uh, it's a, it was a big deal and it was so fun to see our staff, like be able to.

You know, get a gift from us that, um, was important for us to be able to give them and for them to, you know, help offset like Christmas, uh, spending. I'm sure that they, they had and gifts that they were buying for other people. Uh, and it just was a fun thing to do. And on, on one side, I'll say your staff.

It's fantastic for culture. It's fantastic for your staff culture, uh, for them to get together and for them to enjoy being around each other. And one of the better sort of signs of whether somebody is going to be retained and stick around in your business is if they have friends in your business. Uh, and if they're, if they do, then they like working there and they're going to stick around longer.

And it's a great way for them to spend time around each other. The other thing is as is as a business owner, your ability to spoil your staff, right, and take them to a fantastic dinner to give them a, you know, a A Christmas bonus and, um, you know, and for you to really take care of your people better, like that's just such a, it's, it is a fantastic, just, it's a fantastic feeling.

It's a fantastic thing that you've accomplished, that you've worked hard to be able to do. And, uh, you should enjoy that. Like you should be able to, you know, feel good about that to, to, to be able to, um, enjoy the moment that you've worked towards because it doesn't come without a lot of work and effort.

And, uh, it's actually the thing I would say we sold our practice two years ago. It's the thing that I miss the most. And I, maybe I can somehow talk my way into The Christmas party this year. We'll see how that, how that goes, uh, at athletes potential. And just to come, just to enjoy being around the people, just to enjoy, you know, the, the holidays with a small group of the right people, it's just so fun.

So don't look at it as an expense. It is literally well worth the cost. It's just part of your overhead for the year. And I promise you, if you do this, you will look back at this as something you're going to have to do every single year, because it'll be that fun, that much fun, it'll be that memorable.

And it will be. Uh that positive for your business and your culture that it's very much worth doing as far as a return investment is is Concerned which is really not the point of this but it's definitely there as well.

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