User experiences with HR analytics were likewise varied. "We are doing it," said a business analyst at a software company who asked not to be identified. "We hear a lot of talk about advanced analytics, but it's really hard to do it internally. You need a team of data scientists." Her approach is to outsource advanced analytics applications to a consultant with 30 years of experience. "It would be almost impossible for us to tap into that kind of knowledge," she said.

For Shankar Krishnamoorthy, a member of the board of directors of Aspire Systems, an IT consulting firm based in Danbury, Conn., HR analytics is already a reality, but it is built on Microsoft Excel spreadsheets that can't grow with the company. Aspire also buys salary benchmarks that it uses to set annual compensation levels. It wants to move off homegrown ERP applications to a single cloud system for human capital management (HCM) and talent management, a move Krishnamoorthy said will provide built-in analytics that he expects to be adequate for his needs. "Some of these tools will be bits and pieces," he said. "The challenge will be getting employees to use them efficiently."

Houston-based CenterPoint Energy has long performed basic HR analytics on its on-premises SAP ERP system and cloud-based Taleo (now owned by Oracle) talent management software, according to Rashmi Saikia, HR technology senior analyst at the electric and gas utility. CenterPoint currently gathers the traditional HR measures of turnover, headcount and compensation, but Saikia had her eye on more advanced, collaborative tools displayed by IBM Kenexa and Mercer that are aimed at making HR reports on personnel movements useful throughout an organization. "It does impress me, but it does mean an expense and a change," she said.

Outsourcing the new analytics to a service provider won't be a deterrent. Saikia said Mercer told her it takes Excel templates from clients and returns monthly reports generated by its Talent Impact software. "They have already done the research on what the dashboards should look like, and we [would be] giving them the data."

IBM Kenexa and Mercer discussions aside, Saikia said she found the conference to be short on specifics. "Every time I go to a session, I see some of the concepts but I don't see the tools themselves," she said.