For the 133 million Americans struggling with a chronic condition, asking for additional support and accommodations at work can be a scary, uncertain experience. For HR managers attempting to manage and meet those requests, the process can be a confusing mess of paperwork and privacy concerns. But smart technology has the power to change that.
Disclo is a new tech-driven compliance platform that manages employee disclosures and helps organizations meet their needs with considered accommodations, all while maintaining the worker’s privacy and complying with HIPAA and ADA regulations. Since launching in July, the company already counts major players as clients, including Kraft Heinz.
“There’s been no standard for managing disclosures and requests,” says Hannah Olson, CEO of Disclo. “We’re working to create that standardization for both employers and employees, because right now, most people don’t even know they’re supposed to talk to HR. There’s a lot of fear and shame here.”
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Olson is familiar with this brand of stress. After being diagnosed with Lyme disease in her early 20s, she made the difficult decision to walk away from a dream job, largely because her treatment plan conflicted with expectations that she works in an office. It led her to launch Chronically Capable in 2020, a job platform and career community that connects workers with chronic conditions to job opportunities and remote work. In 2021, as the pandemic lingered and workers struggled to create supportive workspaces in their homes, those community members started asking Olson and her team for even more help.
“We were receiving literally hundreds of messages a day about how to disclose a disability or health condition at work,” Olson says. “We see just a 3% disclosure rate at a national level, even though we know that 30% of all workers have disabilities and 60% have chronic illnesses.”
After speaking with hundreds of HR leaders, Olson realized that the employer did not have much clarity on how the disclosure and accommodation process was supposed to work, either. In the interest of employee privacy, HIPAA and ADA regulations prohibit health information from being stored within tech-driven HR platforms like Workday or ADP; that left people leaders to create their own antiquated systems, relying on random spreadsheets and even post-it notes to track employee requests and accommodations.
“[Even] large enterprises were telling us this,” Olson says of these makeshift programs. In contrast, Disclo’s tech platform acts as a third-party, managing all disclosures and accommodation requests between an employer and employee, without actually stating the employee’s underlying health condition to the Disclo can verify an employee’s conditions through their healthcare providers, help negotiate accommodations, and timestamp each interaction, to show that both parties are engaged in the process.
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Since 2020, there’s been a significant increase in both accommodation requests and claims of discrimination. That change in disclosure rates, Olson suggests, was a direct impact of the pandemic: As work shifted to the home, many employees received stipends to create comfortable workstations that supported their needs. As work now shifts again, in some cases back to the office, employees may feel more empowered to request accommodations that will support their health and success.
“What’s resonating with employers is that Disclo is an intuitive tech platform. We’re not an adviser, we’re not telling you how to respond, we’re just helping manage the process and eliminate a lot of risk,” Olson says. “We can of course make recommendations — like flexible scheduling for anxiety or an investment in an ergonomic chair for chronic pain — and have a massive resource library, but we’re just here to help employers know how to handle these situations.”
Disclo has already proved vital for employers who, in the wake of Roe v. Wade’s reversal, offered to provide travel stipends to employees who needed to travel out of state to receive reproductive care. “We received a lot of inbound interest, and were able to help organizations verify pregnancies and offer those reimbursements without actually having to know who is seeking an abortion,” Olson says.
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Simplifying the process for both employers and employees, Olson hopes, will lead to more workers asking for the support they need — which has positive implications for businesses. According to the Harvard Business Reviewemployees who disclose their disability or condition at work are 30% more engaged than those who don’t.
“We want to be a guide, like the TurboTax of disclosure and compliance,” Olson says. “Taxes are really hard to manage, but TurboTax takes it one step at a time. We’ve built Disclo with that in mind, making the process easier for employers and employees alike.”
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