Allowances to be considered while estimating the Standard Time: Allowances are added to the normal time in order to arrive at standard time. It is impossible to work throughout the day even though the most practicable, effective method has been developed. Some allowances must therefore be made for recovery from fatigue and for relaxation. Allowances must also be made to enable the worker to attend to his personal needs. There are following types of allowances;
[1] Relaxation Allowance: These are calculated so as to allow the worker to recover from fatigue. These are used to provide the worker with the opportunity to recover from physiological & psychological effects of carrying out specified work under specified conditions. The amount of allowance will depend on nature of job.
[2] Personal (Need) Allowance: It is intended to compensate the operator for the time necessary to leave, the workplace to attend to personal needs like drinking water, smoking, washing hands. Women require longer personal allowance than men. A fair personal allowance is 5 % for men and 7% for women.
[3] Fatigue Allowance: It is an allowance given to compensate for energy expended during working. A common fatigue considered as allowance is 4 % of the basic time
[4] Variable Allowance: It is allowed to an operator who is working under poor environmental conditions that cannot be improved, added stress and strain in performing the job. The variable fatigue allowance is added to the fixed allowance to an operator who is engaged on medium and heavy work and working under abnormal conditions.
[5] Interference Allowance: It is an allowance of time included into the work content of the job to compensate the operator for the unavoidable loss of production due to simultaneous stoppage of machines. This allowance is applicable for machine or process controlled jobs.
[6] Contingency Allowance: It is an allowance of time which may be included in standard time to meet legitimate and expected items of work or delays etc. This allowance provides for small unavoidable delays as well as for occasional minor, extra work. E.g. Tool breakage, Power failures etc.
[7] Policy Allowance: Basic purpose of this allowance is to line up standard times with requirements of wage arrangement between employers and trade unions. It is an increment, other than bonus increment, applied to standard time to provide satisfactory level of earnings for a specified level of performance under exceptional circumstances. It is used with utmost care and only in clearly defined circumstances.