The death of 29-year-old Gcina Dhladhla at Cartrack’s Rosebank offices has pushed workplace culture back into the national conversation.
Dhladhla’s family has demanded answers after reports that she told a supervisor she was unwell but continued working. Cartrack has said Dhladhla experienced a medical emergency at its offices and has strongly denied claims that she was refused help or forced to keep working.
When work stops feeling safe
The point is not to decide from a distance exactly what happened in that office. That is for investigations and any legal process. The bigger question is: What happens when workplaces say they care about wellness, but employees do not feel safe enough, powerful enough, or human enough to stop working when something is wrong?
Dhladhla’s death sparked outrage online and outside Cartrack’s offices, where protesters demonstrated. The issue has hit a nerve because many South Africans know exactly what a hostile workplace feels like.
Toxic is not just ‘bad vibes’
A toxic workplace is not just a place where your manager sends “Quick one?” at 4.58 pm. It’s a workplace where harmful behaviour becomes normal: bullying, harassment, retaliation, impossible workloads, ignored complaints, unsafe conditions, or a culture where speaking up feels more dangerous than staying silent.
Toxic workplaces are not only emotionally unpleasant. They are power systems. They teach workers to keep quiet, push through, overperform, and apologise for having bodies, families, limits, and medical needs.
The Occupational Health and Safety Act requires employers to provide and maintain a working environment that is safe and free from risks to employees’ health. Employee health is not an inconvenience to be managed around. It’s part of the employer’s responsibility.
‘I felt like a plaything for my manager’
/explain/ spoke to several people who shared their experiences anonymously. The details differed, but the pattern was familiar: managers with too much power, workers with too little protection, and HR departments that employees did not always trust to protect them.
A former video editor at a South African news station said she felt like a “plaything” for her manager. She said the manager initially made her feel like part of a family to whom she could share personal struggles, only to later weaponise those struggles against her.
“It was just very clear that she did not want her employees to succeed,” she said.
She added that new ideas were encouraged during induction, only to be dismissed later. Her recommendation was simple: more people, particularly senior staff, need to speak up when they see toxic behaviour.
A woman who worked in advertising described being harassed by older male colleagues and excluded after rejecting their advances. She said the experience damaged her confidence at a critical stage in her career.
Both women argued that companies should use independent HR firms or investigators when serious complaints are lodged, particularly when power imbalances exist.
A journalist who has worked in several newsrooms said one toxic workplace stayed with her in particular because “everyone was passive-aggressive and executives favoured those who contributed to and deepened the toxic culture”. The experience really eroded her confidence.
“Working overtime became the norm rather than the exception,” she said, adding that although overtime is common in journalism, the hours became excessive, leaving her with almost no time for family, friends, or hobbies.
“When I did have free time, I just wanted to rest because I was so exhausted,” she said.
How bad is it?
Taegan Devar, an industrial psychologist and founder of organisational development firm Fineline Consulting, told /explain/ toxic workplaces are more common in South Africa than many people realise.
She said Dhladhla’s death should not have been necessary for employers to take workplace culture seriously.
“Many companies talk about health and wellness, but few translate that into action,” Devar said. “Employee wellbeing must be part of a company’s overall strategy.”
She pointed to the South African Depression and Anxiety Group’s 2024 Working Life Survey, which found that 52% of surveyed employees had been diagnosed with a mental-health condition.
Workers linked their mental-health struggles to familiar workplace pressures: tight deadlines, long hours, conflict with colleagues, constant organisational change, too little rest, and physically uncomfortable work environments.
The problem is a workplace culture in which overwork is normalised, bullying is dismissed as “pressure”, and burnout is treated as a personal weakness rather than a warning signal.
Toxic workplaces hurt everyone
Old-school managers often believe fear makes people productive. Actually, it makes them guarded, tired, and very good at updating their CVs during lunch.
Devar said toxic workplaces often reduce work to a transaction: employees do only what is necessary to get paid and stop going the extra mile.
Toxic cultures lead to high staff turnover, lower morale, weaker productivity, and reputational damage. Cartrack’s public fallout shows how quickly internal workplace concerns can become a national story.
How do we fix it?
Devar says workers should speak out where they can, but also prepare carefully. That means documenting incidents, maintaining records, and seeking trusted support before initiating a complaint or disciplinary process.
She said employees also need to understand what bullying and harassment look like, not only what the company policy says.
Real wellness means safe reporting channels, independent investigations, consequences for repeat offenders, proper workloads, fair leave, and managers who understand that leadership is not a licence to terrorise people on Teams.
As the journalist put it: “Humans need to be viewed as human beings, not human capital or human resources.” That is the heart of it.
A workplace should not feel like a space employees have to survive. If your company starts caring about wellness only after a tragedy, protest or public embarrassment, then it does not have a wellness strategy. Never mind a PR problem, it has an organisational culture problem.
This article and video were published in partnership with explain.co.za, accessible news for busy people.