5-5-4 (rotating) schedule

How the 5-5-4 rotation works

The 5-5-4 is a 28-day cycle built from three blocks: five 12-hour shifts followed by five days off, another five on and five off, then four on and four off. Fourteen shifts and fourteen days off, in blocks long enough that each one feels like a short week of work followed by a short vacation.

Four crews cover a 24-hour operation, two on days and two on nights, staggered through the cycle so that a crew is always on. In the rotating version each crew swaps between days and nights at a block boundary, usually moving to nights after the four-on, four-off and back to days after the next five; in the fixed version, which the calendar here models, your crew keeps one shift type. If you rotate, the hours are identical and only the chip colours differ.

Because 28 days is exactly four weeks, the pattern repeats on the same weekdays every cycle. Whichever weekday your first five-day block starts on, it will start on that weekday again four weeks later, so weekends off are not random: over a cycle you get some full weekends off and work through others, always the same ones.

Hours, overtime, and what it pays

Fourteen shifts of 12 hours is 168 hours per 28-day cycle, an average of 42 a week. The five-day blocks make the weekly split lumpy: a workweek that contains a whole five-shift block is 60 hours, one that straddles a break may be 24 or 36, and the table above shows the best and worst overtime totals that produces at a 40-hour threshold.

The 5-5-4 tends to have fewer weeks over 40 than the 2-2-3, but the weeks that are over it are heavier. If you are hourly and non-exempt, each hour above 40 in a workweek is paid at time and a half on your regular rate, night differential included. Employers that run this pattern on a 12-hour-shift agreement sometimes treat 84 hours per fortnight as straight time; check which rule your paycheck follows.

A five-shift block of nights concentrates a whole pay period's differential into one week, so if you rotate, expect night pay periods and day pay periods to look quite different. Price any week in the overtime pay calculator with your rate and differential.

Who uses it and why

The 5-5-4 shows up in manufacturing plants and distribution centers that moved from 8-hour to 12-hour shifts and wanted longer blocks than the 2-2-3 offers, in chemical plants, in data centers and network operations centers, and in security contracts that staff 24-hour posts. It is less common than the 2-2-3 or 4 on, 4 off, but it is chosen where crews prefer fewer, longer breaks.

Its supporters like that a five-day break is long enough for a trip and that there are only three blocks to remember per cycle. Its critics point at five twelves in a row, especially on nights, and at the loss of the every-other-weekend rhythm the 2-2-3 gives.

Pros and cons

Longer blocks, longer breaks: what that costs.

• —Pro: two five-day breaks and one four-day break every 28 days.
• —Pro: the cycle repeats on the same weekdays, so weekends off are predictable.
• —Pro: fewer handovers and commutes than shorter-block patterns.
• —Con: five consecutive 12-hour shifts, twice per cycle.
• —Con: 60-hour workweeks when a block lines up with the workweek.
• —Con: the same weekends are worked every cycle; some crews never get a particular weekend off.

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