What Is a 2-2-3 Schedule? (Free Schedule Builder)

If you run an operation that never shuts off — a plant floor, a hospital unit, a security desk, a call center — you have probably run into the 2-2-3 schedule, even if nobody handed you a diagram of it. A 2-2-3 schedule is a rotating pattern built around 12-hour shifts that keeps a facility covered 24 hours a day, seven days a week, while still giving each person a predictable rhythm of work and rest. It sounds like a phone extension, but it is really just a promise: you will never work more than three days in a row, and you will get every other weekend off.

That promise is why the pattern has stuck around in so many round-the-clock workplaces. Below I will walk through exactly how the days fall, why the math works out the way it does, and how you can build one for your own team in a couple of minutes.

2-2-3 schedule 14-day rotation grid
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Free Restaurant Staff Scheduling Software

Rush hour at a quick-service restaurant isn’t one job, it’s four running at once: someone on the register, someone on the line, someone working the drive-thru window, and a shift lead who has to be on the floor the entire time the store is open — not just during the manager’s hours.

Restaurant staff schedule generated by the free staff scheduling tool
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Onfleet Alternative: A Free Route Optimizer, No Minimum

Onfleet is one of the few routing and delivery platforms that actually publishes its pricing, which I respect. But the number itself, $599 a month to start, before you’ve routed a single stop, is exactly why people go looking for an onfleet alternative. I build optimization software for a living, and the free tool below solves the same routing math without a monthly minimum.

onfleet alternative — free route optimizer results map with optimized routes
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Free Hotel Staff Scheduling Software

A hotel front desk never closes, which means someone senior has to be reachable at 3am just as much as at 3pm — even though the person who can actually approve a comp or handle an angry guest at 3am is a different kind of role than the night auditor working the desk. Housekeeping runs on its own tight window, and maintenance mostly doesn’t need covering overnight at all.

free hotel staff scheduling software
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Why a Tiny Scheduling MILP Took Minutes: CBC vs HiGHS

My generalized staff scheduler is a small optimization problem: eight people, a week of half-hour slots, about five thousand binary variables. By modern standards that is tiny. So when it started taking minutes to solve — or worse, returning nothing at all — my first reaction was disbelief. This post is the story of CBC vs HiGHS on that exact model, and the four fixes that actually mattered. If your PuLP + CBC model is grinding, some of these will probably apply to you too.

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