The government will officially begin to collect data on sexual harassment in the workplace from today.
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The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment already collects data on harassment and bullying, but not on sexual harassment specifically.
It will now keep a separate register of all such claims, so as to better understand the scale of the problem.
All information gathered would be confidential and any personal identifying features would be removed from the incident reports, the ministry said.
A Law Society survey of about 3500 lawyers that was released in May found that one in five respondents had been sexually harassed, based on the Human Rights Commission definition.
Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner Dr Jackie Blue says complainants need to know that they'll be listened to.
