Given the vibrant and dynamic nature of the ICT/BPO sector in Mauritius, employers report an ongoing mismatch of skills between what is required and what is readily available. One of the reasons underpinning this state of affairs, is the information asymmetry that exists at any particular point of time between the demand and supply of labour.

In this light, in 2013, the HRDC in collaboration with professionals in the ICT/BPO sector developed the nomenclature of job profiles. It comprised 33 job profiles under 6 sub-sectors namely BPO, Call Centre, Networking, Software Development & Web, Software Testing and Systems Design.

A number of rigorous working and validation sessions were held with representatives of the industry to constitute and finalise the job profiles.

The ever-changing character of ICT/BPO occupations coupled to the need to systematically provide novel information on career pathways have highlighted the need for continual and user friendliness of information provision.

The Career Development Stairway (CaDS) website was developed with this in mind. To this end, a working group was set up to review the job profiles and the competency matrix in line with developments of the sector and requirements of the CaDS website.

Team leads (members of the working group) were assigned sub-sectors and they sought the collaboration of other ICT/BPO operators for crafting the job profiles. This exercise gave rise to 63 jobs and 3 additional sub-sectors emerged.

Career progression was also worked out for the jobs. The revised nomenclature of job profiles was thereafter subjected to a validation workshop where the players of the industry helped to refine them. This formed the bedrock for the development of the CaDS website.