When someone leaves an office job, the laptop usually comes back without anyone designing a process for it. They stop by the IT desk on their last afternoon, hand it over, and that's the end of it.
Remote offboarding has no equivalent moment. The employee's last day ends with them closing a laptop at their kitchen table, and from then on the company's leverage is goodwill and a shipping label. Every IT team that supports remote staff has a few of those laptops out there, and some have dozens.
To get a laptop back from a remote employee, start the return as soon as their departure is confirmed, not on their last day. Send a prepaid return kit with a box, padding, a label and short, clear instructions, so all they have to do is pack it and drop it off. Follow up on a fixed schedule, and revoke access and lock the device on the last day regardless.
IT often hears about a departure on the last day, or after it. By then the person has no remaining reason to prioritize your request, and if the exit was difficult, they may have reasons not to.
"Please ship the laptop back at your convenience" asks someone to find a box and packing material, print a label and get to a carrier. Each step is a place to stall. Plenty of people who fully intend to return the device simply never get around to it.
The request goes out and then lands in the gap between HR, who consider offboarding finished, and IT, who consider it HR's process. Two weeks pass, then two months, and the laptop becomes a write-off nobody decided on.
If the return terms first appear in an exit email, they read like a new demand. Return expectations work better when they're part of the paperwork the employee signed at hiring, such as the employee handbook: the equipment belongs to the company and comes back when they leave.
This timeline fits resignations and other planned departures. Layoffs need a different order, because nothing can reach the employee before they've been told. That's covered after the timeline.
Start offboarding logistics the moment a departure is confirmed. Getting HR to notify IT at this point, automatically rather than by email, is the most valuable change most companies can make.
A prepaid return kit arrives at the employee's address: a box sized for the equipment, with packaging, a label and a short instruction sheet showing what goes in the box and where to drop it off. If you issued a monitor and dock as well, the kit should fit all of it, or send a second box. Hybrid home setups are where most missed returns hide.
Sending the kit before the last day matters. It arrives while returning it is still part of their job, rather than a favor to a former employer.
Revoke access, and lock or wipe the device through your device management platform. This protects the data whether or not the hardware comes back, so don't wait for the return to do it.
With a layoff, the return kit can't go out early. A box that arrives before the conversation tells the employee their job is ending before their manager does. Coordinate the timing with HR:
Keep the return request neutral and courteous. Someone who has just been let go is more likely to send the laptop back when returning it is easy and the tone is respectful.
Handle the data on the last day, whether or not the laptop ever comes back.
The most common mistake is treating device recovery and data security as one project. When they're linked, an unreturned laptop becomes both a hardware loss and an open data exposure. On the last day, every time:
With these steps done, a laptop that never comes back is a hardware loss, not a data breach. When a laptop does come back, it still needs a verified wipe before anyone else uses it. Our guide to data wiping covers what that involves.
Some companies send a small thank-you, such as a gift card, when a device comes back on time. Others feel company property shouldn't need a reward, and that's a fair position. If you try it, measure whether your return rate actually moves.
Penalties need more care. Rules on deducting unreturned equipment from a final paycheck vary by state, and some states restrict it, so check with legal before writing it into policy.
A returned laptop on a shelf in someone's office isn't doing much more for the company than one still sitting at the former employee's home. Send returns to a facility that can inspect, wipe and either reissue or retire them, and track how long that takes.
Endpoint Value Management treats that stretch as part of the lifecycle. The goal is to get the most value from every endpoint, including the weeks between one employee and the next. Return rate tells you whether devices come back. Redeployment tells you whether they get used again. With laptop prices staying high, as covered in our 2027 IT budget planning guide, every recovered device you reissue is a purchase you avoid.
Most companies can't say what their return rate is, so they can't tell whether a change helped. Track two numbers:
Break both down by department and by type of departure, and look at why the late or missing devices were late. The causes tend to repeat.
If you're starting from nothing, pull a list of everyone who left in the past 12 months and check which of their devices came back. That one number tells you whether you have a housekeeping issue or a real leak, and it gives you a baseline.
The policy should list everything the employee was issued, including any monitor or dock, and say that all of it comes back when they leave. Explain how the return works, with a prepaid return kit and simple instructions, and what happens if a device isn't returned, including when HR or legal get involved. It's a good idea to include it in the paperwork employees sign when they're hired, such as the employee handbook, so it isn't new to them when they depart.
Coordinate with HR and legal before you standardize the process. For voluntary resignations, request the return five to seven days before the employee's last day; for layoffs, ship the kit only after the employee has been told. Send a reminder every 7 days for four weeks, escalate anything still outstanding, and keep reporting on non-compliant devices after that, still tied to the employee's name.
Lock it or wipe it on the last day either way, since a device in transit can still be lost. A remote wipe doesn't replace a verified wipe once the device is back, before it's reissued or retired.
It depends on the state. Some restrict deductions from final wages, so involve HR and legal before using pay as leverage. A clear return policy and an easy return kit recover more devices than threats.
Remota recovers laptops and full home setups from departing employees with custom return boxes. By default, the employee is notified the day the box ships and then every 7 days for four weeks, and the schedule can be adjusted for each customer. Any device still outstanding after that is marked non-compliant, and the list goes to the customer so HR or legal can follow up. Every device that comes back is tracked by serial number in our customer portal and sanitized to NIST SP 800-88 before it's repaired and redeployed or retired. Each customer has an assigned customer lead who knows their program and steps in when something needs attention. Talk to us about your return rate.
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