What a workplace ‘crying room’ says about psychological safety – and HR’s duty of care

A former senior talent acquisition specialist at CBC North – a division of Canada’s public broadcaster based in Yellowknife, in the country’s far north – has launched legal action alleging he was effectively forced out of a toxic workplace marked by discrimination and harassment.

Karl Johnston, who worked there from 2018 to 2023, has sued CBC in the Supreme Court of the Northwest Territories, claiming his work environment became intolerable. CBC disputes the allegations and says it will defend the case, which has yet to be tested in court.

One detail from Johnston’s account has struck a chord well beyond Canada: his description of an unofficial “crying room” – a spare office he says staff retreated to when work-related stress became overwhelming.

Normalisation of distress

For people and culture leaders, the very idea of a crying room should set alarm bells ringing.

“If an unofficial ‘crying room’ exists in a workplace, it's a major signal that employee stress and distress has become normalised, and psychological safety in the workplace has broken down,” said Brianna Madron, director of people and culture at Edmonton-based mental health company Dive Thru.

“HR can't frame this as employees not being ‘tough enough’, as that mindset can quickly become a way to dismiss real harm and avoid accountability,” she said.

If employees are routinely seeking out a private space to cry or calm themselves, that’s no longer the rough and tumble of a busy job, Madron argues. It’s a sign of a serious workplace mental health risk that demands intervention, not stoicism.

Allegations that go beyond heavy workload

Johnston’s lawsuit alleges that the problems at CBC North extended well beyond a demanding workload or everyday friction.

He claimed managers kept a secret “do not hire” list that disproportionately blocked marginalised, disabled and Indigenous candidates from employment. He also alleged he was pressured to return to work early from short-term disability leave after multiple surgeries.

The claim says Johnston was “constructively dismissed” in 2023 after he raised concerns about the workplace and was told to “stay in his lane”. CBC has declined to comment in detail while the matter is before the courts, beyond stating it will contest the allegations.

For Australian HR leaders, the specifics may be playing out in a Canadian courtroom, but the pattern is uncomfortably familiar: heavy workloads, unresolved conflict, alleged discrimination in hiring, and a culture where pushing back attracts pushback.

A breakdown in psychological safety

At the heart of the “crying room” image is psychological safety – the sense that employees can speak up, struggle, or make mistakes without fear of humiliation or retaliation.

Madron said when staff rely on a private space just to get through the working day, it signals that coping has been individualised rather than addressed at a system level.

If people feel they must step away to a secluded office to manage distress, it can mean they don’t feel safe raising concerns in open forums. It can also indicate that workload has tipped from busy to chronically unsustainable, or that conflict and disrespect have been left to simmer.

In that context, HR’s role is not to celebrate resilience or “grit”, Madron suggests, but to ask a harder question: what is driving employees out of shared spaces and into isolation in the first place?

A people issue – and a business risk

Madron argues that situations like those outlined in the CBC case must be treated not only as a wellbeing issue but as a direct business risk.

“It impacts performance and creates real financial risk – we know there’s a clear link between psychological safety and business results – and it impacts people, and people deserve better,” she said.

For Australian organisations operating under evolving psychosocial risk regulations, the parallels are clear. Treating a crying room as a quirky cultural feature or a sign of a “high performance” environment misses the point. It’s a risk indicator.

Madron suggests HR leaders elevate concerns by:

• Bringing hard data to the table – trends in burnout, mental health-related leave, workers’ compensation and disability claims, turnover, complaints and engagement results.
• Setting clear thresholds so recurring issues, high attrition or visible distress automatically trigger escalation to senior leadership.
• Explicitly tying psychological health to the employer’s duty of care and to downstream costs such as absenteeism, lost productivity, turnover and potential legal exposure.

Psychological health, she says, should be tracked as a core business metric, with the same discipline that boards and executives apply to financial and operational indicators. The aim is not to scapegoat line managers, but to ensure they have “the expectations, tools, coaching, and accountability needed to lead psychologically safe teams”.

Watching for early warning signs

While the CBC North case centres on a remote Canadian operation, the dynamics are familiar to many HR teams responsible for regional offices, smaller sites or semi-autonomous business units across Australia. These locations often fly under the radar of head office, yet local decisions on hiring, performance management and workplace culture can have outsized legal, reputational and human consequences.

In such environments, informal signals can matter as much as formal complaints. Employees regularly seeking out a quiet room to decompress. Staff warning new starters about a “rough” manager. Jokes about people crying in the bathroom. These are not harmless stories – they’re early indicators of psychological safety under strain.

For Australian HR leaders, the lesson from the alleged “crying room” is less about geography and more about vigilance. When distress becomes normalised, and coping is pushed back onto individuals, it doesn’t just erode wellbeing. It quietly builds into a structural risk – one that can end up in court, in the headlines, and on the balance sheet.