For many victims of harassment and stalking, the impacts do not stop at the front door.

The behaviour can follow them into the workplace, where perpetrators may use colleagues, systems or physical spaces as another way to intimidate and monitor them.

That was the reality for Cassie Roma, whose own experience with harassment and stalking stretched across almost a decade.

"It lasted years and started in the context of me doing some public speaking for work," she said.

"And turned into almost a decade of online and in real life [harassment], showing up at the workplace, my home, my child's school - just really horrific stalking by somebody not known to me," Roma said.

During that time, New Zealand had introduced the Harmful Digital Communications Act, and Roma said the person eventually left the country.

But Roma said the harm signalled a gap in support for people experiencing harassment and stalking, particularly when it followed them into their work lives.

"What I realised at the time was that there wasn't a lot of help for women and people, especially at work, going through these kinds of things," she said.

One of the most difficult parts was the tricky feeling that she was placing a hefty responsibility on those around her.

"One thing I didn't realise at the time, but what I was feeling, was a lot of guilt for putting my colleagues and other people in situations where I felt like they needed to protect me," she said.

As she grappled with two individual harassment and stalking experiences that stretched across two different workplaces, she saw firsthand the difference a workplace response could make.

"I was very lucky in the first instance because management and leadership really helped keep me safe emotionally, physically, and in other ways.

"So I know what it looks like when this is done well, when you share something really vulnerable and scary in your personal life, and somebody in a position of power or a colleague actually sees you and offers you the support and I guess emotional safety that you need."

However, after Roma became more publicly recognised through her work as a leadership speaker and former senior executive, she experienced further instances of stalking.

With that came varied responses from organisations she worked with.

Those contrasting experiences, she said, reinforced a need for workplaces to understand how to recognise and respond to stalking.

"Having two really differentiated experiences really hit home to me the importance of, you know, being able to recognise, respond, and support people through different forms of stalking," Roma said.

She said stalking is often misunderstood, because it is not always one glaringly obvious or dramatic incident.

"It's this accumulation of behaviours that create that fear and control. It's not one frightening moment. It's hundreds of moments that kind of steal someone's sense of security," she said.

Stalking can include unwanted contact, monitoring movements, tracking social media activity, spreading rumours or using technology to intimidate and cause fear.

While anyone can experience stalking, women are disproportionately affected.

Victim-survivors may be targeted by former partners, acquaintances, colleagues or strangers, and technology is becoming an increasingly sly tool for surveillance and control.

What will the workplace guide do - and why is it important?

Now, just months after stalking became a standalone criminal offence in New Zealand, the government has launched a new workplace guide aimed at helping employers recognise stalking and respond safely.

It also aims to help support staff experiencing it.

The Workplace Guide to Addressing the Impact of Stalking has been developed by the Ministry for Women, alongside Shine and Human Resources New Zealand.

"I think this is such a really cool, amazing thing, this practical workplace response, because it enables businesses and empowers managers to be human in the face of something really vulnerable and scary, a very human experience," Roma said.

National Party MP Nicola Grigg sits in the House during Question Time.

VNP/Phil Smith

Minister for Women Nicola Grigg said the guide builds on the recent law change, which made stalking a standalone criminal offence carrying a maximum penalty of five years' imprisonment.

"We've been really specific in our thinking around first, you know, make it a crime, and because we know that this is occurring… quite often out in the public and with women, most particularly, being the victims of it," Grigg said.

"So now that we have enacted the law, I think it is the time to educate employers and, indeed, employees, about what stalking is, what it looks like, and how best to respond to it."

The guide provides practical advice for employers on how to recognise stalking behaviours, respond safely to disclosures, and mainly reduce risks in the workplace.

This will see measures such as developing workplace safety plans with employees, limiting perpetrators' access to workplaces, offering escorted walks to vehicles, protecting employees' personal information, having supportive conversations, and connecting victim-survivors with legal and specialist support.

Grigg said workplaces are an important part of the response, because they can provide support networks.

At the same time, they are often a place where harassment and stalking manifests.

"For most of us, the workplace is where we spend the majority of our day, and we develop close relationships, and we develop friends, but indeed, trusted relationships with our colleagues," Grigg explained.

"We often think of stalking outside of the home, and I suppose we probably think stalking as being followed home on the footpath at night. But actually, it can extend to, you know, obsessive texting or emailing or reading private documents or invading people's privacy.

"So again, this toolkit is about helping employees and employers recognise what it is, and most importantly, be able to respond to it."

Chief victims advisor to the Government, Ruth Money, said workplaces are often involved in stalking situations, whether the perpetrator is a colleague or someone using the workplace as a point of access.

"I have certainly worked with many victims of stalking who have been stalked at work by colleagues and/or at work by people who weren't work colleagues, with offenders showing up at work - for example, parking outside in car parks, waiting for you to finish at work, following you, delivering gifts - unwanted gifts," Money said.

"So a workplace can be a place of access to many offenders who wish to stalk people."

Money said education will be critical to ensuring the new law translates into purposeful support for victim-survivors.

"You can't support people unless you understand what stalking and harassment is, what it looks like, how it can affect people while they're at work, and how you can support people to be safe in your workplace," Money said.

"Many victims of stalking don't have a safe or trusted person to be able to disclose to, and if you don't know that it's a criminal offence, and you don't know how to react, then we will end up with our victims not being supported and not disclosing a crime."

Cassie Roma said the most impactful response is simple - listen and believe people when they come forward.

"I think the most impactful point, in the way that people can help the most, is to remember that we're all human," she said.

"If someone is brave enough to say what's happening or to speak their truth, then listen to them and react in a kind and caring way."