Design a Workforce Structure Built to Perform
Strong organizational design in health care aligns people, roles, and structure so your mission-driven strategy can be executed consistently and successfully.
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When Structure Doesn’t Match Strategy, Performance Suffers
Health care organizations are under increasing pressure to improve access, quality, and efficiency while navigating workforce shortages, rising labor costs, and evolving care delivery models. Yet many operating structures were built for a different era—and haven’t kept pace with today’s demands. Over time, roles, layers, and reporting relationships often accumulate in response to growth, new initiatives, or urgent operational needs.
Without a deliberate approach to organizational design, it becomes difficult to execute strategy consistently, deploy talent effectively, and create the clarity needed to sustain performance.
Workforce Structural Challenges
Fragmented Accountability
Inconsistent Decision-Making
Duplicated Effort
Overburdened Leadership
Partnering with SullivanCotter
Uncover a Better Organization Within Your Organization
SullivanCotter helps health care organizations align their operating model and workforce structure to the capabilities that drive performance and differentiation. By designing around strategic priorities—rather than starting with existing roles or legacy models—organizations build structures that can adapt alongside care delivery and shifting market demands.
Our human-centered design approach begins not with org charts, but with clarity around goals, design principles, decision rights, and accountabilities. We focus on who makes decisions, how accountability is established, and how workflows interconnect—enabling faster execution, reduced friction, and better use of leadership capacity.
Each solution is tailored to your organization’s strategy, culture, and maturity, balancing trade-offs and engaging leaders throughout the process. This deliberate, inclusive approach builds alignment and results in workforce structures that support sustained performance and long-term growth.
Seven Elements of an Operating Model
Services & Capabilities
Organizing Blueprint
Roles & Accountabilities
Decision Rights & Governance
Structure
Behavioral Norms & Culture
Workforce Strategy
How We Help
SullivanCotter helps organizations design workforce structures and operating models that reflect the complexities of health care. By combining organizational design expertise with industry-leading workforce intelligence and analytics, we build scalable, flexible models aligned with organizational strategy and performance goals.
Effective organizational design goes beyond boxes and reporting lines. It requires a holistic view of how work is organized, decisions are made, and accountability is established across the organization.
Our organizational design framework brings together a set of interdependent elements that must be addressed in concert to support strategy and performance.
When these elements are intentionally aligned, organizations strengthen execution and accountability while building a workforce structure that can evolve as care models and strategic priorities change.
We engage leadership and stakeholders throughout the process—establishing a shared understanding, alignment among leaders, and commitment to implementation. This increases adoption and accelerates impact.
Technology & Data Spotlight
Workforce Insights360™
Data That Anchors Better
Organizational Design
Workforce Insights360™ brings deep workforce analytics and proprietary health care workforce data to the organizational design process, giving leaders a clear, objective view of the size, shape, and structure of their workforce.
By mapping roles into standardized job families, functional hierarchies, and objectively defined job levels, the platform highlights where structures may be misaligned, where spans of control vary from peers, and how workforce composition influences cost, accountability, and performance outcomes. These insights help organizations design and refine structures that support strategic goals, informed decision-making, and sustainable operational performance.
Explore Workforce Insights360™
“Designing the right structure ensures the workforce is aligned, roles are clear, and leaders can effectively manage performance across the organization.”
— Garrett Sheridan, President, Lotis Blue Consulting
Surveys to Guide Organizational Design
Explore SullivanCotter’s comprehensive survey data—including compensation, workforce, and performance benchmarks—to inform strategic decision-making and operating model design.
Workforce Metrics Benchmark Survey
As health care organizations seek to optimize care delivery and improve performance, effectively managing workforce size, shape, and complexity remains key. This survey helps organizations understand how their workforce size, distribution, and cost compare to market practices.
Health Care Workforce Premium Bundle
Includes six survey reports: Advanced Practice Provider Compensation and Productivity, Health Care Management and Executive Compensation, Health Care Staff Compensation, Medical Group Executive Compensation, Physician Compensation and Productivity, and Physician Executive Compensation.
Advanced Practice Provider Leadership and Organizational Survey
As health care organizations seek to transform care delivery by improving access, quality, services, and affordability, supporting the advanced practice provider (APP) workforce and optimizing leadership practices are essential. This survey highlights leadership roles, integration strategies, and workplace infrastructure for better APP workforce management.
Pulse on the Industry
Stay current with the latest research and thought leadership from SullivanCotter on workforce analytics, organizational design, operating models, retention drivers, and performance optimization.
More Services to Explore
Let’s Architect Your Solution
Ready to connect organizational design to strategic priorities and operational performance?
Contact SullivanCotter to begin.
