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Quattro Development is a small real estate development firm renowned for its dedication to quality work and a growing national presence. With a footprint in dozens of states nationwide, co-founders Rob Walters and Michael Liyeos believe their unique management approach is the reason for the company’s growth and success.
“We have a culture that I think is different than our competitors and other development companies that we’ve seen,” Michael Liyeos says. Liyeos and Walters offer unlimited vacation time and flexible remote work arrangements, but that’s just the start.
What really sets Quattro Development apart is its employee equity program, which offers equity stakes to all full-time employees regardless of their role or job title. Just 35% of private companies offer this benefit, but Liyeos and Walters believe it’s the key to long-term employee motivation.
“One of the things that we offer our employees is an equity stake in every project that we develop so that we’re all working together for the common good of the company, but each of us individually, because we all have financial rewards as equity participants in the projects,” Michael Liyeos explains.
Liyeos and Walters share how the Quattro Development employee equity program works and how it contributes to the small business’s continued success.
Quattro Development Co-Founders Spell Out the Employee Equity Program
When Liyeos and Walters founded Quattro Development in 2008, they hustled to grow the business and increase its value through the profits earned on its projects. But as they welcomed a team of employees to the company, the duo realized their hard-working staffers deserved stakes in Quattro Development’s projects, too.
Traditionally, only company executives and investors benefit from real estate development equity through shares, stocks, membership, or partnership interests. But Quattro Development has a flat corporate structure where everyone is equal, so Liyeos and Walters felt strongly about providing employee equity.
“We have a team of Quattro employees that are critical in the efforts to develop a project. They get paid a salary and they have benefits,” Michael Liyeos notes. “But as an extra incentive, we give them each this equity stake in each of our projects so that they have a percentage of the profits that the company makes.”
The Benefits of Offering Employee Equity in Real Estate
Michael Liyeos and Rob Walters have offered employee equity for nearly 10 years. After seeing the results, the co-founders believe equity and compensation are essential to small business growth. “I think the way we look at it is, the objective of our company is to develop real estate projects to make a profit,” Liyeos points out.
For Quattro Development, the benefits of paying out employee equity greatly outweigh the costs of the equity payments.
Employee engagement is on the decline. From 2020 to 2022, employee engagement decreased from 69% to 60%. Compensation alone won’t solve engagement and motivation issues, but for Quattro Development, offering employee equity has led to measurable gains in productivity.
With equity agreements, employees can see the tangible results of their hard work. “If they’re making money for the company, it’s not just for this rich guy to get his next yacht,” Rob Walters says. Equity options make work personal, which is the key to Quattro Development’s productivity and success.
Rob Walters and Michael Liyeos wanted to offer some type of bonus to employees based on performance, but struggled to find a fair model for their team. Practically speaking, offering equity stakes to all employees simplifies performance-based compensation.
“It’s just a lot easier to tie their compensation to the projects instead of some arbitrary bonus,” Liyeos says. This way, employees know exactly how their efforts impacted the project and their equity payments. “They have a direct input into their efforts and how that affects the profitability. And they get a direct output as well when we sell the property,” he adds.
Quattro Development doesn’t pit different employees or departments against each other. Instead of separating teams by role, Walters and Liyeos offer equity to everyone as a way to foster teamwork. “In the real estate business, I think there’s a lot of deal guys or front-end guys, even brokers, who expect equity over time. I think a lot of the other role players don’t as much, and I think we just have determined everybody should be incentivized that way,” Walters explains.
“Our equity stake is pretty much available to all the employees versus just the ones who find a deal, which I think helps the teamwork and team mentality of our company as well,” he continues.
Since all full-time employees can access equity stakes, the entire Quattro Development team rallies to push through more deals while offering a high degree of service to Quattro’s clients. “It just keeps everybody rowing in the same direction,” Liyeos says.
Redefining Employee Rewards the Quattro Development Way
Equity stakes usually go to company executives and investors, but Quattro Development’s co-founders take a different approach. Rob Walters and Michael Liyeos have improved employee motivation, simplified compensation structures, and increased team cohesion by offering equity stakes to all employees.
Quattro Development’s leaders believe results-based compensation is necessary in an era of declining workplace engagement and floundering productivity. Instead of working simply to boost company revenue, the small business’s employees see the tangible benefits of their hard work — which is a breath of fresh air in an otherwise cutthroat industry.
It might sound like a revolutionary idea, but to Walters and Liyeos, offering equity is simply about being the kind of boss you would want to work for. “Act like the person you want your employees to act like,” Rob Walters concludes.
