Pitman Schedule Generator

The Pitman schedule is a 14-day rotating shift pattern that uses four crews and two 12-hour shifts to cover an operation around the clock, working two days on, two off, three on, then two off, two on, three off. Use the Pitman schedule generator above to build the real calendar for your own crew, or read on for how the rotation works, what it costs in overtime, and where it beats the alternatives.

I built the generator because every Pitman schedule I could find online was a static grid. A picture tells you the shape of the rotation. It does not tell you whether you are working the second Saturday in November, or how many hours that particular fortnight lands you with. This one does.

What Is the Pitman Schedule?

The Pitman schedule, sometimes spelled Pittman, is a 12-hour shift pattern built on a two-week cycle. Four crews share the clock. Two crews cover the day shifts and two cover the nights, and unlike a rotating pattern such as DuPont, nobody swaps between the two. If you are hired onto nights, you stay on nights.

Each crew works seven 12-hour shifts per fortnight. That is 84 hours every two weeks, or an average of 42 hours a week. Across a year it works out to roughly 183 shifts, about 2,196 hours, and 182 days off.

The pattern is best known by its rhythm, which is where the other names come from. Written as the run of shifts it reads two on, two off, three on, two off, two on, three off, which is why you will also see it called the 2-2-3 schedule, the 2-3-2 work schedule, or the 3-2-2 schedule. Those are all the same rotation described from a different starting day.

Not sure the Pitman schedule is your pattern? Compare all the 12 hour shift schedules and take the quiz to find the one that fits.

Pitman Schedule Example: The Full 14-Day Pattern

Here is one crew’s fortnight, with X for a scheduled shift and a dash for a day off:

• Week one — Monday and Tuesday on, Wednesday and Thursday off, Friday, Saturday and Sunday on
• Week two — Monday and Tuesday off, Wednesday and Thursday on, Friday, Saturday and Sunday off

As a single line of 14 days: X X – – X X X – – X X – – –

Then it repeats. Two features fall straight out of that grid. You never work more than three shifts in a row, and every second weekend is a complete three-day weekend, Friday through Sunday. Over a year that is 26 three-day weekends, without spending a single day of leave.

How the hours land

The 42-hour average hides a fortnight that is anything but even:

• Week one — five shifts, 60 hours
• Week two — two shifts, 24 hours

That lopsidedness is the single most important fact about running this rotation, and it drives the overtime maths further down the page.

How Four Crews Cover 24 Hours a Day

The Pitman shift schedule pairs crews. Crew A works the pattern above on days; Crew B works its exact inverse on days, so that between them the day shift is staffed every single day. Crews C and D do the same on nights.

Line all four up and every day of the cycle has exactly one crew on days and one on nights. Never two, never none. The rotation chart in the generator draws all four crews together and checks that coverage day by day, so you can see it rather than take my word for it.

This is also why the pattern needs four crews. With three you cannot staff both shifts every day without someone working a rotation that breaks the cycle.

The Pitman Schedule for Police and Fire

Law enforcement is one of the biggest users of this rotation, and it is worth understanding why, because the reasons are specific rather than general.

Fixed shifts matter enormously in policing. Officers build court appearances, training, family arrangements and sleep around a known clock, and a rotating pattern disrupts all four. Pitman gives a permanent shift assignment while still delivering full 24-hour coverage, which a straight five-day roster cannot.

The three-day weekend every fortnight does real work too. It gives supervisors a predictable window for training days and court time that does not eat into a rest day, and it gives officers something that reads as genuine recovery rather than a scattered day here and there.

Fire services more often run 24-hour shifts on a 24/48 or 48/96 pattern instead, because the work profile is different. But dispatch centres, custody suites and civilian control rooms frequently sit on Pitman alongside them.

Pay and Overtime on a Pitman Schedule

This is where the lopsided fortnight bites. Over a year you work about 2,196 hours. Under United States federal law, overtime is not averaged over a fortnight or a year. It is calculated inside a fixed, regularly recurring seven-day workweek that your employer designates, and hours over 40 inside that window attract the premium.

A 60-hour week produces 20 hours of overtime. A 24-hour week produces none, and there is no mechanism that lets the quiet week absorb the heavy one. So the entire overtime bill depends on where the seven-day line falls across the 14-day cycle.

The number worth checking

I ran the same rotation, the same crew and the same 2,196 hours through all seven possible workweek start days. Nothing about the shifts changed. Only the day the workweek was declared to begin.

The annual overtime came out at either about 200 hours or about 520 hours. Same work, same year, two and a half times the overtime, decided by an administrative choice most people never see made. On a modest hourly rate that is several thousand dollars.

For an employer that cuts the other way: aligning the designated workweek badly can add tens of thousands to a plant’s annual labour bill for no operational benefit whatsoever. Set your real workweek start in the pay tab of the generator and it will show you which weeks tip over 40, by how much, and what all seven options are worth.

What else to factor in

• Night shift differential — because Pitman shifts are fixed, a night crew works every one of its 183 shifts at the premium rate, which is a much bigger annual difference than on a rotating pattern
• Unpaid meal breaks — 30 unpaid minutes a shift removes about 90 paid hours a year
• Which calendar day a night shift belongs to — a shift running 7pm to 7am straddles midnight, and how payroll splits it can move hours across the workweek boundary
• State law — some states apply daily overtime over eight or 12 hours as well as the weekly rule

The generator produces a planning estimate, not payroll. Check it against a real pay stub before you rely on it.

Every Other Weekend Off

Twenty-six three-day weekends a year is the headline benefit, and it is the reason crews vote for this pattern when they are given the choice. It is also more useful than the raw number suggests, because the weekends are predictable years ahead. The cycle is exactly two weeks, so once it is aligned to the calendar it never drifts.

Leave stretches unusually well against it too. A three-day weekend already has shifts on either side; book leave for those and the block grows quickly. The time off planner in the generator lists every break of three days or more in your year and shows what one, two or three leave days buys you on each.

Pitman Compared With DuPont and Panama

All three cover 24 hours with four crews on 12-hour shifts, and all three average 42 hours a week. The differences are in how the time is distributed.

• DuPont — a 28-day rotating cycle that pays for its seven-day break with a 72-hour week containing a day-to-night flip. Bigger block of time off, much harder middle.
• Panama — the same 2-2-3 rhythm as Pitman, but with days and nights swapping every two weeks. A middle ground for sites that want some rotation without the DuPont hell week.
• Pitman — no rotation at all, a maximum of three shifts in a row, and a three-day weekend every fortnight. The trade is that you never get a full week off.

The short version: Pitman is the steadiest of the three and the kindest to sleep, because a fixed shift lets the body settle into one routine. DuPont wins if what you want is a long block of time away. The generator will build any of them, so you can compare the actual calendars rather than the descriptions.

Advantages and Drawbacks

What crews like

• Twenty-six three-day weekends a year without spending leave
• Fixed shifts, so sleep, childcare and study can be built around a stable clock
• Never more than three shifts in a row
• Half the year is a day off — 182 days
• A two-week cycle that is trivially easy to remember and predictable years ahead
• The 42-hour average usually generates paid overtime rather than being absorbed

What causes friction

• The 60-hour week is heavy, and it lands every fortnight without fail
• Permanent nights suit some people and wear others down badly, and moving between crews is often difficult
• Twelve-hour shifts leave little of the day once commute and sleep are accounted for
• Pay varies between the heavy and light weeks, which is awkward on weekly pay
• Every other weekend is worked in full, including both weekend days
• It needs four full crews, so absence is expensive to cover

Who Uses the Pitman Schedule

Police departments and emergency dispatch. Hospital departments running around the clock, particularly emergency and critical care. Manufacturing and continuous-process plants. Utilities, water treatment and power generation. Security operations and control rooms. Casinos, airports and any operation where the doors never close and the work is steady rather than seasonal.

If a job advert mentions 12-hour shifts, four crews, fixed days or nights and every other weekend off, you are almost certainly looking at a Pitman schedule.

Pitman Schedule Template, Calendar and Excel Export

The generator gives you the rotation in whichever form is actually useful:

• A full-year Pitman schedule calendar, all 12 months colour-coded by shift, or one month at a time in detail
• A rotation chart showing all four crews across the 14-day cycle, with the coverage check and the hours breakdown
• A spreadsheet download that opens in Excel or Google Sheets, one row per day, so you can build your own Pitman schedule template around it
• A calendar file that imports every shift into Google Calendar, Apple Calendar or Outlook, timed to your real start and finish
• A printable black-and-white version sized for a noticeboard or a locker door
• A shareable link that reopens the generator with your crew and start date already loaded

There is also a crew finder for the situation everybody hits eventually: you know you are on C crew but nobody can tell you what date the cycle started. Enter one or two shifts you remember working and it tests every crew against every possible start date and tells you which fit.

FAQ

What Is a Pitman Schedule?

The Pitman schedule is a 12-hour shift pattern on a 14-day cycle, using four crews to cover an operation 24 hours a day. Two crews work days and two work nights, and nobody rotates between them. Each crew works two shifts on, two off, three on, two off, two on, three off, which comes to seven shifts and 84 hours a fortnight, or an average of 42 hours a week. It is also spelled Pittman, and the same rotation is widely called the 2-2-3 schedule.

How Does the Pitman Schedule Work?

Crew A works the pattern on days and Crew B works its exact inverse, also on days, so the day shift is covered every day. Crews C and D do the same on nights. Line all four up and every day of the cycle has exactly one crew on days and one on nights, with the other two off. That is what produces continuous coverage with no gaps and no doubling up, and it is why the pattern needs four full crews.

How Many Hours a Week Is a Pitman Schedule?

It averages 42 hours a week, but it does not arrive evenly. One week of the fortnight is five shifts and 60 hours; the other is two shifts and 24 hours. Across a year that comes to about 183 shifts, roughly 2,196 hours and 182 days off.

Do You Get Overtime on a Pitman Schedule?

Usually yes, because the 60-hour week sits well above the 40-hour federal threshold and the 24-hour week cannot offset it. How much depends on which weekday your employer has designated as the start of its workweek, since that decides where the seven-day line falls across the 14-day cycle. On the same rotation and the same hours, annual overtime works out at either about 200 hours or about 520 hours depending on that one choice. The pay tab in the generator compares all seven options.

Is the Pitman Schedule the Same as 2-2-3?

Yes. Pitman is the name of the rotation; 2-2-3 describes its rhythm. You will also see the identical pattern written as a 2-3-2 work schedule or a 3-2-2 schedule, which are the same 14-day cycle counted from a different starting day. The hours, days off and coverage are identical in every case.

Why Do Police Departments Use the Pitman Schedule?

Because the shifts are fixed. Officers build court appearances, training, childcare and sleep around a known clock, and a rotating pattern disrupts all four. Pitman gives a permanent shift assignment while still delivering full 24-hour coverage, which a conventional five-day roster cannot. The three-day weekend every fortnight also gives supervisors a predictable window for training and court time that does not consume a rest day.

Do You Get Every Other Weekend Off?

Yes, and it is a full three-day weekend from Friday through Sunday, provided the cycle is aligned to the calendar week. That works out to 26 three-day weekends a year without spending any leave. Because the cycle is exactly two weeks, once it is aligned it never drifts, so you can work out which weekends are yours years ahead.

What Is the Difference Between the Pitman and DuPont Schedules?

Both use four crews on 12-hour shifts and both average 42 hours a week, but they distribute the time very differently. Pitman runs a 14-day cycle with fixed shifts, a maximum of three shifts in a row, and a three-day weekend every fortnight. DuPont runs a 28-day cycle that rotates between days and nights, includes a 72-hour week with a day-to-night flip in the middle, and pays for it with seven consecutive days off every cycle. Pitman is steadier; DuPont delivers a bigger block of time away.

Can I Get a Pitman Schedule Template in Excel?

Yes. The generator exports a spreadsheet with one row per day covering the date, weekday, shift, start and finish time and hours, which opens in Excel, Google Sheets or Numbers. You can sort it, filter it, or use it as the basis for your own Pitman schedule template. There is also a printable calendar and a calendar file for your phone.

How Do I Know Which Crew I Am On?

Your employer assigns it, usually as A, B, C and D or by colour. If you know your crew but not what date the cycle started, use the crew finder in the generator: enter one or two dates you remember working and what you worked, and it tests every crew against every possible cycle start to find the combinations that fit. Two dates from different weeks normally pin it exactly.

What Are the Drawbacks of the Pitman Schedule?

The 60-hour week is heavy and it arrives every fortnight without fail. Twelve-hour shifts leave little of the day once commute and sleep are counted. Every second weekend is worked in full, both days. Permanent nights suit some people and wear others down, and moving between crews is often difficult. Pay swings between the heavy and light weeks, which is awkward on weekly pay. And because it needs four full crews, absence is expensive to cover.