How Headout runs a global real-life experiences platform with employees across 20 countries
When Headout found the right person to hire in Austria, its EOR provider refused to adjust the employment contract. The provider said no.
That single hire — three and a half years ago, still with the company, still employed through Multiplier — became the starting point for a full vendor consolidation that Kynan Francis, Headout’s HRBP for international employees, has been running ever since.
Headout is home to the world’s best real-life experiences, from expert-led tours and iconic landmarks to live events, attractions, and everything in between.
That single hire — three and a half years ago, still with the company, still employed through Multiplier — became the starting point for a full vendor consolidation that Kynan Francis, Headout’s HRBP for international employees, has been running ever since.
Headout is home to the world’s best real-life experiences, from expert-led tours and iconic landmarks to live events, attractions, and everything in between.
3 > 1
EOR providers consolidated
20
jurisdictions managed
650+
employees globally
Company
Headout
Headquarters
New York, US
Founded
2015
Industry
Experiences Technology
Company Size
650+ employees
Products
Employer of Record (EOR), Global Payroll
THE CHALLENGE
- A four-person people operations team was managing employees across 20 countries through three EOR providers, six separate payroll systems, and a mix of local agencies, with limited in-house expertise across all jurisdictions.
THE SOLUTION
- Consolidated all EOR relationships onto Multiplier and began migrating global payroll country by country, starting wherever a natural transition point appeared.
THE RESULT
- One platform, one point of accountability, and local payroll expertise in every jurisdiction, freeing the people team to focus on policy and employee experience instead of chasing compliance across a dozen different systems.
The challenge: Three EOR providers, six payroll systems, and a UK compliance gap no one had time to fix
Kynan was Headout’s first Culture & Talent Team employee outside of India. As Headout expanded internationally, global employee operations were initially coordinated centrally while the company scaled across new markets, creating increasing complexity across local employment practices and compliance requirements.
The situation he inherited:
- Three separate EOR companies
- Gusto running payroll in the US
- Xero running payroll in the UK
- Agencies handling payroll in France, Spain, and Italy
- Germany on its own payroll system
As the company expanded rapidly across markets, local hiring and employment operations evolved independently, which created fragmentation across systems, processes, and ownership.
“I had to step in and put in a lot of policies and procedures and remind people, you don’t have to do that anymore,” Kynan says. “In fact, please stop doing that because you’re creating all sorts of risk and exposures.”
The fragmentation cost the team time on every front. There was no single source of truth for compliance. And when something went wrong, no clear accountability for fixing it.
This compliance cost showed up most clearly in the UK.
Kynan had been running payroll manually. He knew the benefits-in-kind reporting to HMRC wasn’t correct — employers need to declare which benefits they plan to payroll before the tax year begins, then report accurately throughout. The complexity grew faster than the systems supporting it.
“Every time we add a new jurisdiction, it’s just another area for me to become familiar with,” he says.
Why Headout chose Multiplier: responsiveness and owned entities
Kynan ran a formal research project comparing every vendor Headout already used plus additional options in the market.
His original EOR provider had a good product, but the customer service was poor. Getting a human on the line took days. Turnaround on simple tasks dragged on. In HR, Kynan says, you don’t have days. Salary issues and employment law risks need answers immediately.
“High litigation exposure,” he says. “I need answers straight away.”
With Multiplier, Kynan has a dedicated customer success manager, Aravind, working in his time zone, available during his working hours, connected on Slack.
Aravind is the best CSM I have had for any vendor ever anywhere
“I don’t have one specific special wow moment because he’s consistently on top of things all the time.”
Kynan Francis,
HR Business Partner, Headout
The relationship goes beyond responsiveness. When Kynan pushes back on pricing for a new country, Aravind takes it seriously and works on it internally. When Kynan flagged that logging in and out of separate portals for each entity was impractical, the team went to product, built a dropdown menu, and fixed the workflow.
Pricing was also a factor. Multiplier undercut most of the market when Headout onboarded. Kynan is aware that cheaper competitors have appeared since, but he flags a specific concern about them: many don’t have their own entities.
“I can tell you straight away that the reason why they’re so cheap is because they don’t have entity, and that is one extra step between you and your employee, which means one extra place for something to go wrong,” he says.
Headout currently uses Multiplier’s own entities in almost every country. Only two jurisdictions require a third-party employer.
The result: a centralized system to manage payroll and compliance for employees across 13 countries
Kynan migrated each country at a natural transition point — when a vendor exited a market, when Headout formed its own entity and moved employees from EOR to global payroll. The UK moved last, driven by the HMRC compliance gap that finally had a fix.
Headout continues to scale globally, with expansion underway across APAC and LATAM.
“The more that I centralize, the easier it is,” he adds. “Handing this over to someone else or training someone to manage it becomes so much simpler when it’s fewer processes.”
That’s what one platform, one vendor, and one point of accountability buys: a four-person team that can run global employment for 650 people without breaking.
