How Serverfarm unified global payroll with Deel and Workday

Serverfarm, a global data center infrastructure company powering sustainable data centers for over 20 years, manages a roughly 300-pverson workforce across the US, UK, Netherlands, and Israel. As its global footprint grew, payroll sat with multiple third-party providers, with execution shared across accounting and people operations rather than centralized in one place.

The company needed to bring its global population onto a single payroll system, align SOPs across regions, and integrate cleanly with Workday—its system of record.

"We were working with at least two separate providers across the UK, the Netherlands, and Israel. Every team had its own process. We needed to centralize our entire global population under one system—and that's exactly what Deel gave us." — Dawn Williams, Director of People Operations, Serverfarm

Serverfarm consolidated payroll across all three international regions onto Deel Payroll, with the Workday Global Payroll Connect (GPC) integration at the core of the architecture. Because Deel is one of only a handful of providers globally certified for Workday GPC, Serverfarm could rely on a vetted, supported integration—not a custom build—to keep Workday as the single source of truth.

Implementation moved quickly. Deel's specialist proactively prepared mass-load templates, so Serverfarm didn't have to enter data manually, and Williams describes the rollout of the platform itself as smooth. Today, personal data, contact information, country-specific payroll fields, job and compensation changes, time off, pay slips, and tax documents all flow on a 360-degree bi-directional sync between the two systems. Serverfarm's payroll team operates in Deel; everyone else stays in Workday.

"The integration capability with Workday is always a top determining factor for us, and Deel was a top-of-mind vendor from a cost and platform perspective. I’m very pleased with the seamlessness of the integration." — Dawn Williams, Director of People Operations, Serverfarm

New hires payroll-ready on day one

By configuring Deel's additional payroll data feature inside Workday's onboarding task list, Serverfarm eliminated the need for new hires to log into a second system. Employees complete every onboarding task in Workday, with the data feeding to Deel instantly, they're activated and payroll-ready on day one. Terminations now run through Workday, with Deel providing an audit checkpoint before finalization.

Williams describes the first new-hire run as a turning point for the team. New hires followed the steps outlined in Workday, and the data appeared live in Deel—her team didn't need to think about a second entry.

"We were very amazed at the adaptability of our new-hire candidates. To see that go live on the Deel side had a huge impact on our team. Employees are ready on day one. There's no payroll chase-down." — Dawn Williams, Director of People Operations, Serverfarm

Automated payroll workflows with built-in audit confidence

Data center operations carry heavy compliance and audit requirements. With Workday as the system of record and Deel auto-syncing changes through Workday-approved workflows, Serverfarm removed the human middle layer—and the risk that came with it. Compensation reviews, address changes, job changes, and title updates flow through Workday approvals straight into Deel without manual re-entry.

"The fewer human hands that touch the data from start to finish, the better outcome. Compensation review was done purely by our managers in Workday, and all the data flowed to Deel. We didn't have to touch any compensation changes." — Dawn Williams, Director of People Operations, Serverfarm

The integration has compressed audits, cleaned up the new hire experience, and pulled people operations out of the day-to-day data layer. The annual compensation review—historically a source of manual pulls and re-entry—took only a few hours to validate this year, with zero errors.

As Williams describes it, compensation planning before Deel was entirely Excel-based, with leaders pulling their own numbers across siloed locations and no single source of truth on headcount. Deel consolidated everything into one system and gave employees visibility into how their recognition translated to real year-over-year change. Onboarding chase-downs across two systems are gone. And Serverfarm's executive team, deeply invested in employee experience, has given the rollout strong internal feedback.

"Deel really helped us get into one system, create a streamlined process, and account for the various pay components for each person. This elevated the performance review process as employees could tie their recognition and see the visible change year-to-year." — Dawn Williams, Director of People Operations, Serverfarm

For Williams, the proof is in how the two systems now work together. She's pleased with the final product, recommends the integration to peers evaluating global payroll, and sees Deel as a long-term infrastructure partner as Serverfarm scales into its next phase of growth.

"I'm extremely pleased with the product. I'm impressed with how this is working for onboarding our new hires, offboarding, and the employee life cycle. Deel continuing to be a strong partner—systematically and operationally—is what we're leaning into as we grow." — Dawn Williams, Director of People Operations, Serverfarm