2-2-3 (Panama) schedule

How the 2-2-3 rotation works

The 2-2-3 is a 14-day cycle. Starting on cycle day 1 you work two 12-hour shifts, take two days off, work three, take two off, work two, and finish with three days off. Then it repeats. Count the shifts and you get seven in fourteen days, which is why the pattern is sometimes written 2-2-3-2-2-3: the second week is the mirror image of the first, so the days you worked last week are the days you are off this week.

Four crews cover a 24-hour operation. Crews A and B work opposite halves of the cycle, so one of them is always on days; crews C and D do the same on nights. In the fixed version, which most people call Panama, your crew stays on days or on nights permanently. If your crews swap between days and nights every two weeks, you are on the rotating Pitman and should use that page instead.

The weekend rhythm is the pattern's main selling point. Because the cycle is exactly two weeks, your working days fall on the same weekdays every other week: one week you work Friday, Saturday and Sunday, the next week you have all three off. Every other weekend is a genuine three-day weekend, and you never work more than three shifts in a row.

Hours, overtime, and what it pays

Seven 12-hour shifts in fourteen days is 84 hours per cycle, an average of 42 hours a week. No individual week is 42, though. Under the federal 40-hour rule overtime is counted per workweek, and where your employer's workweek starts decides how much of that 84 lands over the line.

The table above shows the range. If the workweek starts on cycle day 1, the weeks alternate 60 and 24 hours and you are paid 20 overtime hours every other week; if it starts the day before, they alternate 48 and 36 and you are paid 8. Same shifts, same straight-time hours, very different overtime. Your workweek start day is in your handbook or on your pay stub, and the generator lets you line the calendar up with it.

Many 2-2-3 employers budget for the extra hours as built-in overtime. Some pay 80 hours straight time per fortnight plus 4 hours at the premium rate, some use a 14-day period under a union agreement, and some quietly average the two weeks, which the FLSA does not allow for hourly staff outside hospitals and public safety. The overtime pay calculator prices any of these weeks at your rate and differential.

Who uses it and why

The 2-2-3 is one of the most common 12-hour patterns in the United States. Police departments, 911 dispatch centers, jails and prisons use it because it keeps whole crews together and delivers the every-other-weekend-off that unions ask for. Continuous-process manufacturers, refineries and chemical plants like it because a 12-hour handover happens twice a day instead of three times. Hospital security, plant operators and data-center staff use the same template.

Workers like it for the three-day weekend every other week and for never working more than three shifts in a row. The cost is that every other weekend off also means every other weekend on, and the alternating two-on, two-off rhythm makes it hard to hold a standing weekday commitment.

Pros and cons

The short version, for people deciding whether to bid onto a 2-2-3 crew.

• —Pro: a three-day weekend every other week, and no stretch longer than three shifts.
• —Pro: only 14 days long, so the calendar repeats fast and is easy to memorise.
• —Pro: fixed days or fixed nights in the Panama version, so your sleep pattern never flips.
• —Con: 42 hours a week on average, with overtime that depends on a payroll setting you do not control.
• —Con: every other weekend is worked, including the Friday night into Saturday.
• —Con: the night crews never rotate off nights unless the employer swaps crews.

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