Thomas Otter, VP product management at software provider Success Factors, said HR professionals were sitting on a "goldmine of data" which they ought to start using.
Otter was sitting on a panel with VP human capital management strategy, Oracle, Gretchen Alacron and VP human capital management products, Workday, Leighanne Levensaler, bringing on to one stage the three major HR software providers players. They were discussing the future of HR technology.
"HR is at a point where marketing was 20 years ago,” Otter said. “Marketing is now deeply numerate and they know how to use analytics to make a point.
"We have a tremendous opportunity to leverage the goldmine of data we are sitting on.
"I also think there's an opportunity to merge social analytics and HR analytics in terms of employee behaviours and how they are on internal and external social networks."
However, Otter said technology "can bring us to a point but it's up to HR to step up its own HR analytics".
Levensaler described big data analytics as a "shiny ball" of information and a major advancement into the science of management, yet said it was not difficult to understand.
"You don't need a whole team of data scientists to do this to crack the code,” she said. “It's just about finding out what are the right points of interest and the right analytics for your business."
