How Directional Pizza, the largest Pizza Hut franchise in the UK, scaled payroll

As a globally recognized pizza chain, Pizza Hut operates dine-in, delivery, and takeaway services. Emily Curtis is the Group Chief People Officer (CPO) at Directional Pizza, the largest Pizza Hut franchisee in the UK. When Directional Pizza expanded into Europe as a new franchisee, it encountered fragmented payroll and HR operating systems after establishing itself as a new entity and acquiring portfolios of restaurants across the UK, Denmark, and Sweden:

• UK: Two newly acquired entities ran separate payroll and HR systems, making it difficult to unify processes and manage employees across locations
• Denmark: Payroll and an HR system had to be built from scratch while navigating unfamiliar local labor laws and compliance requirements.
• Sweden: The team relied on local payroll and HR platforms that were disconnected from the broader organization, complicating management and reporting.

Without a unified system providing a single view of labor costs, the organization risked inefficiencies in navigating economic shifts and ensuring multi-market compliance.

For a franchise where revenue depends on fast hiring, onboarding, and training, every moment spent searching for a consolidated payroll and HR solution meant less time dedicated to setting up operations and serving customers. Finding a single, automated solution wasn’t just important—it was urgent.

"I wanted payroll to be as simple as ordering a pizza. Every minute employees spend on admin instead of serving customers impacts our revenue." — Emily Curtis, CPO, Directional Pizza.

Curtis conducted a market review of global payroll and HR providers, evaluating Deel, ADP, Papaya Global, HiBob, and BambooHR. Deel stood out as the only fully integrated, single-platform solution covering Global HRIS, payroll, IT, and compliance—eliminating the need for additional platforms or manual data entry.

"Deel is the only truly complete solution for scaling a global team. The moment I saw everything it could do in just one platform, I knew they truly understood our challenges and had built exactly what we needed." — Emily Curtis, CPO, Directional Pizza.

Directional Pizza relies on Deel's built-in global HRIS—to run every people-ops workflow in one place. From compliant onboarding and digital contract signing to time-off tracking and org-wide reporting, Curtis’ team manages all employee data across their three hubs with a few clicks. No more scattered spreadsheets or local systems.

With Deel Global Payroll, Directional Pizza gains a fast, standardized, and seamless way to scale. They can manage payroll for all entities in one place, supported by Deel’s in-house payroll experts and automated compliance monitoring.

But Deel’s impact extended beyond payroll and HR—IT management became a game-changer. Previously, each newly acquired business had a fragmented, localized IT setup, resulting in inconsistent and unscalable operations.

By switching to Deel IT’s global-first solution, the team was able to hire across borders and seamlessly equip employees with the technology they needed, wherever they were located. Directional Pizza can now procure, deploy, and manage IT assets across all countries from a single platform.

In just three months, Deel helped Directional Pizza Hut launch HR and payroll in Denmark, the UK, and Sweden.

Midway through implementation, Directional Pizza acquired another major UK entity, adding 3,000 employees across monthly and biweekly pay cycles—solidifying its position as one of the largest Pizza Hut franchisees in the UK and Europe.

Impressed by Deel’s impact, Curtis and her team committed to migrating all 3,000 employees onto Deel, creating a unified, global platform for their entire business.

Beyond payroll, Deel’s EOR solution unlocks even greater scalability. As Directional Pizza expands, acquires, or restructures operations, Deel enables rapid market entry, seamless onboarding, and faster revenue generation—ensuring the business remains agile in an evolving market.