Extractions of this article were published in the September 2025 Issue of Trenchless Technology Magazine.
Across the HDD industry, finding and retaining skilled drillers has never been more challenging. Veteran operators are retiring. Younger workers are entering the trades at a slower rate than projects are growing. At the same time, HDD adoption is expanding at unprecedented rates as trenchless methods prove less disruptive to natural environments.
While this growth is excellent for the industry, it presents subtle but profound challenges for small and mid-sized crews. High turnover, fewer labor options, and a greater percentage of inexperienced operators can quickly lead to inefficiencies and bottlenecks that drain production.
The result? Labor shortages slow projects, limit bidding capacity, and increase safety risks. While there’s no overnight fix, contractors can take meaningful steps using a simple framework: the 3 T’s—Tech, Training, and Tooling.
- Tech streamlines operations and keeps jobs organized.
- Training builds essential skills and can require minimal downtime.
Tooling choices make crews more effective—regardless of experience level.
Why Traditional Models Are Struggling
For decades, HDD training followed a predictable path: pair a greenhorn with a seasoned driller, let them shadow for weeks, and hope the knowledge sticks. But with fewer veterans available to mentor and tighter timelines, that system is under stress.
Challenges include:
- Experienced operators are stretched thin between training and production demands.
- Formal training requires costly downtime, travel expenses, and lost billable hours.
- Tooling, rigs, and project complexity are changing so fast that “learning once” isn’t enough.
The old model can’t keep pace with the speed and complexity of today’s growing HDD workload.
The Everyday Pain Points That Compound the Labor Shortage
Beyond training, small and mid-sized HDD contractors are losing hours every week to problems that aren’t about drilling at all—they’re about organization and communication. When crews are already stretched thin, these inefficiencies hit even harder.
- Ticket Management Production Delays: With fewer hands on the crew, every wasted minute matters. Losing time to hunting down the ticket details—or worse, discovering the ticket has expired—means the same small team now faces a multi-day delay. High turnover exacerbates this issue: when experienced crew members leave, so does their knowledge of where to find critical information, how to keep tickets current, and what steps prevent these shutdowns. The result is stalled production and limited crew resources being either idle or diverted to lower-priority work.
- Inefficient Task Management and Time Tracking: When labor is scarce, you can’t afford to have hours disappear due to poor scheduling or outdated timekeeping. A foreman relying on memory or a shop whiteboard risks sending the wrong crew to the wrong job, duplicating work, or misreporting hours—stretching your already limited workforce even thinner.
- Scrambling to Fill Coverage Gaps: On a busy morning, a no-show locator can set off a chain reaction of calls, texts, and jobsite reshuffling. Without real-time visibility into crew availability, you’re stuck playing staffing Tetris instead of focusing on production.
The 3 T’s: Field-Proven Solutions for the HDD Labor Crunch
1. Tech: Streamlining Jobsite Operations
Modern job management platforms—built for construction—centralize everything from locate tickets to crew schedules.
- Locate ticket integration keeps ticket numbers, maps, and renewal reminders in one place.
- Automated expiry alerts prevent mid-project shutdowns.
- Digital time tracking and task assignment replace paper timesheets, giving managers real-time visibility into progress and costs.
- Crew availability dashboards make it easy to fill coverage gaps without a flurry of calls and texts.
These platforms, such as Utility Ox, don’t replace skilled labor—they free up the skills you already have by removing administrative friction.
2. Training: Keeping the HDD Knowledge Baseline
The HDD industry already offers robust, in-depth training options through hands-on experiential learning in academies, specialized regional mud schools, and even hands-on rig simulators from equipment OEMs. These longer-format programs are invaluable for building advanced skills and deep expertise, and many contractors rely on them to develop top-tier drillers and crew leaders.
Shorter-format, online training adds another layer to that plan. Micro-learning and blended training models create a low-barrier way to get every crew member—regardless of experience—up to speed quickly and consistently. They can:
- Provide quick, targeted lessons to get new crew members up to a baseline understanding that has an immediate impact on operations.
- Be accessed from anywhere—on a phone, tablet, or laptop—making them easy to fit into downtime at the yard, in the truck, or between bores.
Some industry platforms already make this possible. For example, one HDD-focused training program includes an HDD 101 course designed for complete beginners, delivering essential concepts in less than 60 minutes. Used alongside more comprehensive training, this type of on-demand learning acts as a knowledge fast-pass—accelerating onboarding, reducing early mistakes, and ensuring crews are better prepared before stepping onto the jobsite.
3. Tooling: Smarter Choices That Reduce Skill Dependence
The tooling you choose can make the difference between a project that runs smoothly with a lean crew and one that stalls under pressure. Options that help minimize skill-related production drains include:
- Quick-change connection systems that allow bit-to-reamer swaps without multiple wrenches or heavy torque work—saving time and reducing the need for specialized hands (breakout wrenches are the first to come to mind).
- Versatile adapters and reamers that fit multiple rigs or ground conditions, so crews don’t need to stock or learn a dozen specialty tools. One example is Melfred Borzall’s puller, which reduces a foreman’s need for multiple specialized bundled microduct pullers in telecom installations.
- Low-maintenance tooling designs that extend service intervals and reduce the need for on-the-spot repairs—critical when less-experienced operators are in the mix. If you have three different bolt sizes or shapes for one housing, it may get confusing, and a single missing bolt can stop a jobsite.
By standardizing on tooling systems that are user-friendly, low-maintenance, and adaptable, contractors can lower the training threshold for effective operation and minimize costly field errors.
The Takeaway for HDD Contractors
HDD jobs and demand are on the rise. Labor shortages and turnover aren’t going away tomorrow—but you can multiply the effectiveness of the crew you have today by:
- Leveraging tech to digitize jobsite operations.
- Using fast-track training to give new hires and cross-trained workers an immediate impact.
- Selecting smart tooling systems that make operation easier without sacrificing performance.
When technology handles coordination, training delivers the fundamentals, and tooling makes operation more forgiving, your crews can focus on what they do best: putting pipe in the ground—safely, efficiently, and profitably.
