At Rhino, Community Volunteers Can Get Time Off for Good Behavior

Soon after Jean Lipman-Blumen sent off the manuscript for “The Connective Edge,” her 1996 book about effective leaders, the Claremont Graduate University professor heard a speech by a record industry entrepreneur that made her wish she could have yanked it back for one last addition.

Richard Foos, president and co-founder of the eccentric Rhino Entertainment Co. in West Los Angeles, was describing his efforts to create a workplace where individuals are encouraged to take pleasure not only in accomplishing day-to-day tasks, but also in pursuing worthwhile activities outside the office.

Foos thus epitomizes what Lipman-Blumen described eloquently in her book (published by Jossey-Bass Publishers in San Francisco): a new sort of corporate leader who seeks to connect with workers on an emotional level, liberating them to do great work and good deeds. This “connective” style defies the “authoritarian, competitive and ruggedly individualistic leadership” that has been the norm in corporate America and that Lipman-Blumen contends is outmoded.

“He has a sense that there’s important meaning to life,” says Lipman-Blumen, an authority on leadership and organizational behavior. Companies must make “what we do a large source of our joy and joy for others.”

There’s no doubt that Rhino, the premier pop culture archivist, is a source of good vibes for its customers. The company’s eclectic catalog includes albums or boxed sets by artists from John Coltrane to Buck Owens to the Monkees.

But Rhino also strives to help employees feel more fulfilled by encouraging community activism. The company puts some muscle behind that goal: Each of Rhino’s 150 employees who puts in 16 hours of community service during the year gets a weeklong paid holiday at year-end. (Not surprisingly, participation has been 100% in the last three years.) For each additional eight hours of community service, the company offers a paid day off, up to six days.

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To take advantage of the program, employees can do anything they want in the nonprofit field, from planting trees to handling phones at public television pledge drives to reading to children in literacy programs.

Allyson De Simone, a process manager who makes sure that Rhino compact discs come out on schedule, puts in 100 to 120 hours of community service a year, much of it at the Al Wooten Jr. Heritage Center, an education-recreation facility founded in the Los Angeles inner city by a mother whose son, a security guard, was killed by gang cross-fire. That center and the Culver West Convalescent Center are among the company’s pet projects.

Rhino’s community involvement program was a big lure five years ago for applicant De Simone, a music lover who initially planned to be a civil rights attorney. “It’s as significant to me as health-care coverage and paid vacations,” she says.

Among many other activities, she goes camping with children from the Wooten center, rides tandem bikes with the blind and works with Women Against Gun Violence. A few months ago, another record label made a run at De Simone, but, she said, its “political philosophy wasn’t like mine, so I wasn’t even interested.”

Rhino’s mellow cheer derives from its mission statement, which hangs in the lobby beneath the ersatz head of a rhinoceros. Laid out in pictographs, it sets the happy-go-lucky yet socially conscious tone that helps Rhino retain workers who could make far more money at traditional studios. It reads:

“At Rhino, our mission is to put out great stuff, have some fun, make some money, learn from each other and make a difference wherever we can. Our future is limited only by our imagination.”

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Support for volunteerism--along with profit-sharing and monthly giveaways of CDs to all employees--comes naturally to Foos, who says his parents were “always social do-gooders, with a strong sense of social responsibility.” Two years ago, he helped found the Southern California chapter of Business for Social Responsibility, and he respects the social missions of companies such as Ben & Jerry’s Homemade and Body Shop.

His partner, Harold Bronson, shares his commitment and a strong belief that the company benefits from a hands-off management style that sparks innovation and productivity. (Under Rhino’s Big Ideas program, employees with innovative ideas get financial rewards.) Above all, Foos and Bronson want to ensure that work doesn’t get in the way of life more than it has to.

“Life has a certain amount of survival quotient to it,” Bronson says. “People should be creative about having fun. [It helps them] tap some deep source. If managers are always looking over their shoulder, how happy can they be?”

The mystery to Bronson is that more companies aren’t building stronger connections with employees. “It befuddles me,” he says. “It doesn’t seem that there’s a mass movement of companies realizing they need to make the [work] environment better. It’s not a new issue. What we’re doing is not groundbreaking. How come so many companies out there haven’t gotten it?”

Does your company have an innovative approach to letting employees shine on or off the job? Tell us about it. Write to Martha Groves, Corporate Currents, Business Section, Los Angeles Times, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles, CA 90053, or e-mail martha.groves@latimes.com