06 June 2017
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 | Steve Gill received a Gold Stevie Award for the Cool Mentoring Scheme at a presentation dinner in Tokyo. Thermentor.Org - Cool Mentoring was launched in 2015 to help match mentors to mentees across the global refrigeration, air conditioning and heat pump industry. It is a not-for-profit project started and run by volunteers with a genuine desire to help their industry. Since its initial pilot scheme, 110 pairs from 12 countries across 4 continents have taken part. |
Unlike conventional mentoring which is typically in-house and face-to-face, the mentor and mentee don’t meet. The whole process is carried out by hybrid e-mentoring employing an intelligent use of technologies available, such as email, SMS, and video-conferencing. The scheme won the category for Innovative Use of Technology in Human Resources at the Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards
Steve used his acceptance speech to thank all the volunteer mentors for their hard work. He said: “They are people that genuinely want to make a difference. They are successful people ‘paying it forward’. When our enjoyment comes from the tangible difference we make to the success of others, mentoring becomes a living definition of the term win-win.”
During the visit to Japan, Steve took the opportunity to meet with local mentors and mentees. He added: “There is a huge amount of enthusiasm for the scheme here. We work in a truly global industry, where knowledge-sharing knows no boundaries. For the mentees, the opportunity to connect with senior people and experts from both within their countries and around the world is opening exciting possibilities. Here in Asia for example, for a whole variety of reasons including cultural ones, it was considered impossible to have access to potential mentors outside of their own organisation. Elsewhere in the world, there are often simply no experts available in the mentee’s location or sphere of connections.
“Receiving this award on behalf of the mentors is a great honour, but the real reward for all of us involved is the difference we are making to the careers of the mentees. Having said that, speaking with other mentors, they also feel that they have personally benefitted themselves in other ways, because to be an effective mentor requires us to stay as engaged in our own development and learning as we hope those we mentor will.”
Steve used his acceptance speech to thank all the volunteer mentors for their hard work. He said: “They are people that genuinely want to make a difference. They are successful people ‘paying it forward’. When our enjoyment comes from the tangible difference we make to the success of others, mentoring becomes a living definition of the term win-win.”
During the visit to Japan, Steve took the opportunity to meet with local mentors and mentees. He added: “There is a huge amount of enthusiasm for the scheme here. We work in a truly global industry, where knowledge-sharing knows no boundaries. For the mentees, the opportunity to connect with senior people and experts from both within their countries and around the world is opening exciting possibilities. Here in Asia for example, for a whole variety of reasons including cultural ones, it was considered impossible to have access to potential mentors outside of their own organisation. Elsewhere in the world, there are often simply no experts available in the mentee’s location or sphere of connections.
“Receiving this award on behalf of the mentors is a great honour, but the real reward for all of us involved is the difference we are making to the careers of the mentees. Having said that, speaking with other mentors, they also feel that they have personally benefitted themselves in other ways, because to be an effective mentor requires us to stay as engaged in our own development and learning as we hope those we mentor will.”
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