How Roll With Paid. Helps Hospitality Businesses Win Payroll

• Client: Earl Giles
• Industry: Craft spirits, mixers, and hemp-derived THC beverages, plus R&D and formulation for other brands
• Engagement: Fractional HR, companywide
• Client since: Summer 2026
• Focus: Streamlined operations, lower payroll costs, stronger employment practices, and a planned workforce transition

When Earl Giles CEO and partner Nick Kosevich talked with Heavy Table about the coming federal hemp ban, he called it “our generation’s Prohibition.” Hemp beverages made up 40 percent of Earl Giles’ business last year, so he wasn’t exaggerating.

Earl Giles brought in Roll With Paid. as its fractional HR team this summer. The work has four parts. We’re tightening how the business runs, bringing payroll costs down, and putting its employment practices on solid footing. The fourth part is the hardest: preparing for a smaller workforce if the ban takes effect in mid-December.

The challenge

Earl Giles is more than a hemp beverage brand. Alongside its spirits and mixers, its Apothecary does R&D and formulation work. The company has helped develop and produce products for more than 20 other businesses and ships concentrates across North America.

The Continuing Appropriations Act signed in November 2025 rewrote the federal definition of hemp. It caps THC at 0.4 milligrams per container, far below Minnesota’s 10-milligram limit for beverages. Once the federal definition takes effect, hemp beverage products can no longer legally cross state lines. That cuts off the out-of-state brands behind much of Earl Giles’ formulation and production work.

The damage started well before the deadline. Prospective clients pulled back from the category in early 2026, and Kosevich estimates the company has lost at least $1 million in revenue and opportunity. At the same time, Earl Giles is investing in what comes next. It’s taking its spirits into new states, launching ready-to-drink cocktails, and putting more marketing behind established products like its ginger beer.

One business line is shrinking, others are getting new investment, and a federal deadline has already moved once. That is when a company’s HR foundation gets tested.

What we’re doing

Streamlining operations

We took on day-to-day HR administration across the whole company. We also consolidated processes and records that had grown up piecemeal as the business expanded. Leadership now has one experienced point of contact for people questions. Less time on HR paperwork means more time for the pivot.

Reducing payroll costs

Fractional HR gives Earl Giles senior-level HR support without the overhead of a full in-house department. The efficiencies we’ve put in place are producing an ongoing reduction in payroll and HR costs. Those savings matter more every month the ban’s outcome stays uncertain.

Strengthening employment practices

• Policy updates. We brought company policies current with Minnesota’s evolving employment requirements and made sure they’re applied consistently.
• Paperwork cleanup. We audited and organized personnel files, onboarding documents, and employment records.
• Worker classification. We reviewed roles to confirm each one is correctly classified, including exempt or non-exempt status and employee or contractor status.

This groundwork matters most when a company has to make hard staffing decisions. Accurate records, current policies, and correct classifications are what make a reduction fair, consistent, and defensible.

Navigating a workforce reduction

No one wants to plan layoffs. When the numbers require it, the process should keep as many people as possible and treat everyone with respect. We built a layered plan with Earl Giles leadership:

1. Redeployment first. Where it’s possible, people move into roles supporting the growing lines: spirits and liqueurs, plus formulation work for functional and energy beverages.
2. Attrition. Open roles tied to hemp work aren’t being backfilled, which reduces how many positions have to be eliminated.
3. Layoffs where necessary. Remaining reductions follow documented, consistently applied criteria.
4. Severance. Affected employees receive structured severance packages.
5. Unemployment support. We help departing employees file their claims and understand what to expect.
6. Outplacement. Affected employees get help with résumés and job searches so they can land their next role.

“Once the hemp ban went from a headline to a date on the calendar, the hardest questions weren’t about product. They were about our people. Roll With Paid. helped us get our house in order, bring our costs down, and build a plan that treats everyone on our team with respect, whether they stay with Earl Giles or move on to what’s next. The work that pulled us through this year, new clients and hemp clients moving into functional and energy drinks, is the work we’re moving our people into.”

Nick Kosevich, CEO and Partner, Earl Giles

Where Earl Giles is headed

The tough year has also made Earl Giles’ direction clearer. This fall, new client opportunities have come in. At the same time, existing hemp beverage clients are moving their products into the functional and energy drink categories. The formulation expertise Earl Giles built in hemp carries straight over to that work.

Earl Giles is also putting a stronger focus on its spirits and liqueurs. Together, these lines are pulling the company out of a difficult year and toward what comes next.

That direction shapes the people plan, too. Redeployment means moving team members into the work that’s growing, so the knowledge the company built during the hemp years stays at Earl Giles.

Congress has already pushed the ban’s effective date back once, and the industry is still pressing for a federal framework that regulates hemp beverages instead of banning them. Earl Giles is planning for either outcome. If a fix arrives, the company is leaner, better organized, and ready to grow. If it doesn’t, a plan is already in place and the people it affects are supported.

Facing the same deadline?

Roll With Paid. works with Minnesota hemp beverage producers, breweries, distilleries, and cannabis businesses. We help them run payroll and HR with confidence, including when the ground shifts underneath them. If your business is planning around the federal hemp ban, we can help you work through the people side of it.