What they found was evidence that current events are forcing the two to pay more attention to recruiting and, in particular, rewards tactics to attract top talent.

While the parties still disagree over exactly how such rewards programs should be structured and implemented, Towers Watson found "they share a concern about the ROI of their rewards investments, which comes through clearly in the data."

Seaborn said Towers Watson has been careful not to overstate the collaboration between the two departments, which have historically viewed each other with caution when it comes to rewards practices.

"Our point of view is not that we've achieved a completely new state for the two functions, but that we're at the beginning of a change in how they work together. We believe the data support our point of view and experience: that the finance and HR functions are connecting more frequently, especially as companies struggle with the tension between cost and talent management goals," he said.

In looking at the data representing responses that Towers Watson suggests show that the two parties are more closely aligned, there remain often significant gaps — often more than 10 percent.

Also, overall, the data seems to indicate a generally low level of working with one another on some key issues of mutual concern. In many cases, less than half of one or both parties "agrees" with the statements they are presented with.

In general, HR answered "agree" much more frequently than did finance, by a factor of at least 10 percent. This could be, as Towers Watson points out, a result of the lessons of the recession still stinging finance while HR is scurrying to fill positions as the economy improves.

Some specific examples of responses from the two departments on direct collaboration:

• Departments develop annual budgets together: finance agrees 46 percent, HR 62 percent.
• There will be more collaboration in the next three years: finance 49 percent, HR 70 percent.
• Set workforce strategy together: finance 35 percent, HR 23 percent.

But, says Seaborn, the results nonetheless represent a better degree of agreement than the survey creators had anticipated.

"The 10 percentage point differences between finance and HR are statistically significant, but, as noted, the majority of both respondent groups generally agree with the statements," he said. "HR agrees more, as one would expect, since rewards have always been part of their core domain.  However, the fact that a majority of finance executives agree as well is one of the reasons we believe there is a foundation on which to build stronger bridges between the functions in the future."

Seaborn said the collaboration between these departments is an issue for corporate leaders to keep an eye on, because how well they work together will have critical implications for an enterprise's success.

"We found these numbers quite positive," he said. "Certainly, we'd expect finance would be more cautious in predicting its increasing involvement in what have been traditional HR areas, so the very fact that just under half see more collaboration coming in the future is a positive finding."