Notes to Management

01 Looking Across the Years

This section looks back at some of the most prominent themes that have come to the attention of the Office of the Ombudsperson (OOMP) attention between 2018 and 2024. With 2025 marking the final full year of Wayne Blair’s tenure as ombudsperson, this retrospective view provides an opportunity to look at issues that recurred during his time in the role and consider what they suggest for ADB Management going forward.

These themes are drawn from aggregated data, confidential conversations, and the concerns raised by those who came to OOMP for help. They reflect the experiences of those who came forward and may not represent the wider ADB community. However, when the same concerns surface from year to year, they suggest patterns in the work environment that merit continued management attention.

The following themes group these issues into a few connected areas.

02 Communication, Knowledge Sharing, and Change Management

In 2018, two structural concerns stood out. The first was the persistence of silos, with knowledge shared vertically within departments and less readily across them. Field office staff appeared particularly vulnerable to this disconnect. The second was change management. As ADB launched its Strategy 2030 agenda, many staff were unsure about what the innovation mandate meant in practice. Top-level messages were not always clearly translated into departmental guidance, and some staff began to lose enthusiasm for the wider organizational goals.

03 Women’s Workplace Experiences

A separate but steady thread across these years was the experience of women in the workplace. Women consistently outnumbered men among those who sought OOMP’s advice. Their concerns included feeling unheard, being overlooked, difficulty fitting into ADB’s organizational culture, and managing work–life balance. These concerns relate directly to visibility, voice, career progression, and retention. Their persistence suggests that they are connected to broader conditions in the workplace itself.

04 The Pandemic, Well-Being, and Work–Life Balance

The pandemic years compounded many of these concerns. They intensified workload, stress, and work–life pressures, and made it harder to overlook how institutional policies were experienced by staff and supervisors. OOMP emphasized the need for a more comprehensive mental health and well-being system, and for clearer support for supervisors who had to translate institutional guidance into daily practice.

The pandemic also surfaced a less visible issue: domestic violence and its spillover effects on work performance and well-being. OOMP highlighted a rise in the cases brought to its attention, and ADB later responded through the Budget, People, and Management Systems Department’s Domestic Violence Response Protocol, related guidance, and resources for members of the ADB community seeking help.

05 Hybrid Work, Workload, Stress, and Burnout

As ADB shifted from remote to hybrid work, staff raised questions about flexibility, productivity, connection, and support in a changed workplace. By 2022, OOMP identified workload, stress, and burnout as systemic concerns. Heavy workload was linked to role ambiguity, inequitable distribution of work, inconsistent prioritization, and insufficient supervisory support.

06 Mentorship and Leadership Development

In response to these recurring concerns, OOMP pointed to structured mentorship as a possible approach. The aim was to cultivate a wider culture of mentorship that could strengthen leadership development, supervisory capacity, communication, conflict resolution, inclusion, and knowledge sharing.

By 2024, individual cases had grown more complex, with staff often sharing several interconnected concerns at once, spanning supervision, team dynamics, peer relationships, and well-being. Tensions rooted in multigenerational and multicultural differences added to this, as did persistent difficulty with staff integration. These concerns reinforced OOMP’s earlier view that mentorship belongs within a broader leadership and learning culture that can help staff navigate ADB’s complex organizational environment.