How to Outfit a Construction Crew in Las Vegas (Without Losing Your Mind)

Outfitting a construction crew sounds easy until you've tried to do it for 50 people in a single week. Somebody needs XXL. Somebody else lost their jacket on day three. Your superintendent is asking why the hi-vis shirts don't match the ones from last year. The office staff wants polos, not tees. And the owner just told a client to expect branded gear on site tomorrow.

We've been outfitting construction and trades crews in Las Vegas today. The companies that do this well don't have bigger budgets — they have better systems. This playbook walks you through the six decisions that matter most, in the order they matter.

1. Start With Your Jobsite Needs

Before you pick a shirt, pick a standard. Most crews skip this step and end up with a closet full of apparel that's almost-but-not-quite compliant with what GCs actually require on site.

OSHA and hi-vis class requirements

If your crew is working anywhere near moving vehicles or heavy equipment, you're looking at ANSI/ISEA 107 Class 2 or Class 3 high-visibility gear. Class 2 is the baseline for most road-adjacent and jobsite work. Class 3 is required when workers are exposed to traffic over 50 mph or low-light conditions. Know which class your GCs require before ordering — we still get calls from contractors who ordered 100 Class 1 vests and can't use them on the strip.

Vegas weather reality

Summer in Las Vegas isn't "hot." It's 115°F with no shade for four months. Cotton shirts are a productivity problem. Moisture-wicking polyester hi-vis tees are non-negotiable from May through September. Then from November to February you need mid-weight hoodies and softshell jackets — especially for your early-morning pour crews.

2. Choose Your Apparel Categories

The crews we outfit usually land on four or five distinct categories. You probably need some version of all of them:

• Daily field wear. Moisture-wicking hi-vis tees and long sleeves. Every field employee gets 4-5 of these. Budget roughly decorated.
• Safety layer. Class 2 or Class 3 vests for crews that need visibility over their field wear. Usually 1-2 per person.
• Office & sales. Embroidered polos and button-downs for the people walking into client offices. Different garment, different decoration method, same brand identity.
• Outerwear. Softshells, insulated jackets, and hoodies. These are the longest-lasting pieces your crew will own — spec them right.
• Headwear. Branded hats are the single highest-impression item on your crew. They get worn every day, everywhere.

Our full services page breaks down pricing ranges by category if you need a starting point.

3. Bulk Order vs Company Store

This is the single biggest decision you'll make, and it depends almost entirely on crew size and turnover. The old-school approach — order 500 tees in bulk, stuff them in a closet, hand them out as needed — works fine for crews under 20 people. Above that it breaks down fast.

For most crews over 30 people we now recommend a branded company store. Employees log in, pick their own sizes, and the gear ships direct to the jobsite or to their home. No closet. No size guessing. No dead inventory. We wrote a full breakdown in Bulk Ordering vs Company Store: The Real Math for Contractors if you want the numbers.

"We had three sizes of hi-vis shirts stacked to the ceiling and still nobody could find a medium. After we switched to a company store, that problem disappeared in a week." — Superintendent, Vegas-based GC (280 field employees)

4. Get Your Artwork Right

Good decoration starts with good art files. We need three versions of your logo to do our job well:

1. Vector file (.ai, .eps, or .svg) — required for screen printing and embroidery digitizing.
2. Single-color version — for hi-vis tees where full color looks muddy or violates ANSI contrast rules.
3. Small-format version — simplified for hats and left-chest embroidery where detail gets lost.

Then pick your decoration method by garment. Screen printing is the right call for tees and high-volume runs. Embroidery is the right call for polos, hats, and outerwear. Read our full breakdown in Screen Printing vs Embroidery for Construction Gear.

5. Timing & Turnaround

Standard turnaround for a bulk decorated order is an extended timeline from artwork approval. Rush orders (on rush) are possible but cost a rush premium and depend on garment availability. Here's how to avoid needing the rush lane:

• Onboarding bundles. Keep a standing pre-order of 15-20 starter kits (shirts, hat, vest in mixed sizes) for new hires. When you hire three people on a Tuesday, they're in gear by Thursday.
• Seasonal pre-books. Order your summer hi-vis in March, not May. Order winter outerwear in August, not November. Vendor inventory crashes right when you need it most.
• Reorder triggers. Set a minimum quantity threshold per SKU. When you drop below, reorder automatically. A company store can do this for you.

6. A Real Las Vegas Example

One of our clients is a mid-sized Las Vegas GC with roughly a large field crew working across four active commercial projects. When they came to us, their process was: each project manager emailed the office with a size-and-quantity list, the office ordered from three different vendors, and gear arrived anywhere from an extended timeline later. They were carrying about piles of dead apparel inventory — wrong sizes, discontinued colors, old logo versions.

We built them a branded company store with four tiers of access: field, field-lead, office, and executive. Each tier has an annual gear allowance loaded to their account. New hires get an onboarding email with login instructions on day one and usually place their first order withon rush. The HR system triggers the invite — the company doesn't manage it manually.

The shift removed the PM-email scramble, took the storage-closet inventory off their books, and gave the controller a clear monthly line on apparel spend instead of vendor-by-vendor surprises. That's the structural value of a company-store program for any crew with recurring apparel needs — predictable budget, no dead inventory, no re-asking employees what size they wear.

The Short Version

Pick your safety standard first. Build a category list (field, safety, office, outerwear, headwear). Decide between bulk and company store based on crew size. Get three versions of your artwork. Pre-book seasonal items. And if you're over 30 people, stop ordering in bulk and set up a store.

Whether you run 10 people or 500, the companies that do this well treat apparel like any other operational system — standardized, automated where possible, and handled by people who know what works on a Vegas jobsite.