The eternal IT struggle: you can wipe a laptop remotely, but you can’t teleport it back to the office. Here’s how to stop losing hardware—and stop making it your problem.
There’s a Reddit thread in r/sysadmin that perfectly captures the laptop retrieval struggle. Someone asked: “How do you guarantee a laptop gets returned after offboarding?”
The top answer, with over 3,000 upvotes?
“Telling HR and our lawyers that this is a legal problem, not a technology problem, and as such falls on them, not me.”
And honestly? That’s not wrong. But it’s also not super helpful if you’re the one getting asked why there’s $96,000 worth of unreturned equipment on the books.At Rayda, device retrieval is literally part of what we do every day. We’ve seen what works, what doesn’t, and why so many companies just… give up. Let’s talk about how to actually solve this.
Table of Contents
First, Let’s Acknowledge the Uncomfortable Truth
Most companies are terrible at getting laptops back. And there are some legitimate reasons:
The math often doesn’t work. If you’re paying someone $50/hour and they spend five hours chasing a laptop, you’ve already spent more than the depreciated value of most 2-3 year old devices. Add in shipping, legal threats that never get enforced, and the opportunity cost of not doing actual IT work, and it’s often cheaper to just write it off.
Remote employees are harder. When someone worked in the office, you could collect their laptop on their last day. When they’re in another state—or another country—there’s no “hand it to security on your way out.”
Nobody wants to own the problem. IT says it’s HR’s job. HR says it’s Legal’s job. Legal says it’s not worth pursuing. The laptop sits in someone’s closet forever.
You can’t withhold pay (usually). A lot of people think you can just deduct the laptop cost from someone’s final paycheck. In most U.S. states, that’s illegal. California? Definitely illegal. Even in places where it’s technically allowed, you usually need signed authorization before the equipment was issued—and most companies didn’t think that far ahead.
And please, don’t send IT staff to collect in person.Another r/sysadmin thread mentions a company that used to do house visits to collect equipment. They stopped after a desktop support tech had equipment hurled at them from a front porch and then found themselves threatened at gunpoint. That policy changed real fast.
Why “Just Wipe It Remotely” Isn’t Enough
Yes, you should absolutely remote wipe devices when someone leaves. That protects your data. But it doesn’t protect your budget.
A wiped laptop sitting in an ex-employee’s garage is still a $1,000+ asset you can’t redeploy to the next hire. Multiply that by 50 departures a year at a 20% turnover rate, and you’re looking at serious money walking out the door.
Plus, if you’re using device financing or leasing, you might be on the hook for equipment you can’t account for.
The Remote Wipe Isn’t Foolproof Anyway
Here’s something a lot of IT teams don’t think about: remote wipe commands only work if the device is online. If a departing employee takes their laptop offline before their last day—intentionally or not—the wipe command just… sits there waiting.
Meanwhile, they can continue using cached credentials to access whatever’s on that local disk. Any files that weren’t synced to cloud storage? Still there. Any saved passwords in the browser? Still there.
Remote wipe is a good security layer, but it’s not a guarantee. Getting the physical device back is still the only way to be certain.
The “Just Let Them Keep It” Trend
Here’s something we’re seeing more of: companies that just… give up entirely.
The logic goes like this: “By the time someone leaves, the laptop is 2-3 years old. It’s mostly depreciated. The hassle of getting it back costs more than it’s worth. Just wipe it and let them keep it.”
And look, there are situations where this makes sense. Some companies even build it into the employment offer as a perk—you keep your laptop after 3 years.
But for most companies, this is expensive, short-sighted, and creates weird precedents:
- You’re buying new devices for every hire instead of redeploying
- Your inventory management becomes a fiction
- Employees start expecting to keep equipment
- Compliance and audit become nightmares
- You lose the ability to redeploy devices to contractors or for loaner pools
If you’re intentionally offering equipment retention as a benefit, that’s a strategic choice. If you’re doing it because you can’t figure out retrieval, that’s just surrendering.
What Actually Works (Based on Real Experience)
After handling thousands of device retrievals across 170+ countries, here’s what we’ve learned:
1. Make It Stupidly Easy to Return
The number one predictor of whether you’ll get a laptop back? How much effort is required from the departing employee.
Low effort = high return rate:
- Pre-paid shipping box arrives at their door
- They drop the laptop in, seal it, leave it on the porch
- Carrier picks it up
High effort = laptop becomes a doorstop:
- Employee has to find a box
- Employee has to figure out shipping
- Employee has to drive to a FedEx location
- Employee has to pay and get reimbursed later
Every additional step you add drops your return rate. If someone has to use a pen, find packing tape, or spend more than 5 minutes, you’ve already lost a chunk of your devices.
One IT manager put it perfectly: “Send a box with a return label. If you get it back, great! If you don’t, lock the device remotely and move on.” The key is removing friction from the people who would return it if it were easy.
2. Communicate Across Multiple Channels (and Keep Communicating)
The only constant in equipment returns is that users are unreliable. The people who handled retrieval at scale say the same thing: constant communication via MULTIPLE channels is the only way to ensure devices get collected.
That means:
- Email to work address (before it’s deactivated)
- Email to personal address
- Text message if you have it
- Slack/Teams message
- Having their manager follow up
One message isn’t enough. Three messages might not be enough. Build a communication sequence into your offboarding workflow and don’t assume silence means they got the message.
3. Automate the Trigger
Retrieval shouldn’t depend on someone remembering to do something. When HR marks someone as terminated in your HRIS, that should automatically trigger:
- Device lock via MDM
- Shipping box ordered to employee’s address
- Reminder emails on a schedule
- Escalation if nothing happens within X days
If your process requires a human to manually initiate each retrieval, you’re going to have gaps. People forget. People get busy. People assume someone else is handling it.
4. Own the Problem (Or Outsource It Completely)
The Reddit wisdom of “make it HR’s problem” is emotionally satisfying, but it often means the problem just doesn’t get solved. HR has a hundred other things to deal with during offboarding.
Two approaches that actually work:
Option A: IT owns retrieval operationally. You build the process, automate what you can, track metrics, and report on recovery rates. When a device isn’t returned, you escalate to HR/Legal with documentation already prepared.
Option B: Outsource the whole thing. Partner with a device lifecycle management provider who handles retrieval as part of their service. When someone leaves, they manage the box, the shipping, the follow-ups, and the escalations. You just get the device back (or a report that it wasn’t returned for further action).
5. Set Expectations Before Day One
The time to establish that equipment must be returned is when equipment is issued—not when someone’s walking out the door.
Have employees sign an equipment agreement that:
- Lists exactly what they’re responsible for
- States the equipment remains company property
- Explains the return process
- Notes that failure to return is considered theft
Will this agreement let you sue someone? Probably not worth it for a laptop. But it sets a clear expectation, and most people will do the right thing when they’ve acknowledged the obligation in writing.
Pro tip from the trenches: tell people to keep the original boxes when they get their equipment. “Hold onto the boxes in case something acts up and we need you to send it back.” When offboarding comes, they already have the packaging.
6. Consider Creative Incentives
Some companies add $100 to the final paycheck specifically for returning equipment on time. It sounds counterintuitive—why pay people to return something they’re already obligated to return?
Because it works. The $100 is cheaper than:
- Multiple follow-up communications
- Escalation to legal
- Replacing the device entirely
- IT staff time spent chasing people
Not every company will want to do this, but if your retrieval rate is terrible and nothing else is working, a small incentive can move the needle.
7. For International Employees, You Need a Real Solution
This is where most in-house processes completely break down.
Getting a laptop back from someone in Ohio is annoying but manageable. Getting one back from someone in Brazil, Nigeria, or Indonesia? That’s a whole different challenge.
One sysadmin summed it up perfectly: “In my experience, it’s very easy in the US, but very complicated in LATAM.”
The complications stack up fast:
- International shipping costs can exceed the device value
- Customs complications going in reverse (yes, even for your own equipment)
- No easy way to arrange local pickup
- Language barriers with carriers
- Time zones making coordination difficult
- Some countries where major carriers simply don’t offer reliable service
For international retrievals, you basically have three options:
- Write it off (common but expensive over time)
- Ask the employee to ship it (unreliable—they often don’t, and you can’t exactly enforce it from another country)
- Use a provider with local logistics (most effective, but requires a partner with actual presence in those markets)
If you have employees in Latin America, Africa, or Southeast Asia, DIY retrieval is basically fiction. You need someone with boots on the ground.
The “It’s Not Worth It” Calculation Is Usually Wrong
A lot of companies convince themselves that chasing laptops doesn’t make financial sense. And for any single laptop, that might be true. But the aggregate cost adds up:
- 100 person company
- 20% annual turnover = 20 departures
- 30% don’t return laptops = 6 devices
- Average device value (depreciated) = $600
- Annual loss: $3,600
That’s a small company. Scale to 500 or 1,000 employees and you’re talking real money.
Plus, there are hidden costs:
- Ordering replacement devices for new hires (instead of redeploying)
- Asset tracking headaches when inventory doesn’t match reality
- Audit complications for companies with compliance requirements
- Setting a precedent that equipment return is optional
What About Those “Missing” Devices?
Beyond offboarding, a lot of IT teams have a secondary problem: devices that are just… unaccounted for.
Conference room laptops. Shared devices. Equipment that got pushed out the door during the pandemic rush to remote work. Devices assigned to employees who left years ago and nobody followed up.
One IT manager described reaching out to users with devices “Last Seen” 300 to 1,000 days ago. Sometimes they respond: “Oh yeah, I have that iPad right here, do you want me to turn it on?” Sometimes they say unhelpful things like “I turned that in” with no explanation of who they turned it in to. Sometimes both the employee and their manager are gone, so there’s nobody to even contact.
This isn’t really a retrieval problem—it’s an asset tracking problem that compounds over time. The best fix is prevention: rigorous tracking from day one, regular audits, and a culture where equipment accountability is expected.
But if you’re inheriting a messy inventory situation, the path forward is usually:
- Identify what you can locate and recover
- Write off what you can’t (with proper documentation)
- Implement better tracking going forward
- Accept that some devices are gone forever
What Rayda Does Differently
Full transparency: at Rayda, device retrieval is baked into how we work. When you deploy equipment through us:
- Automated retrieval triggers when employees offboard
- Pre-paid boxes ship directly to the employee’s address
- Local pickup available in 170+ countries (including the hard ones)
- Tracking and escalation so nothing falls through the cracks
- Secure data wiping before devices are redeployed or recycled
We’re especially strong in markets where retrieval is typically a nightmare—Latin America, Africa, Southeast Asia. Instead of writing off that laptop in Lagos, São Paulo, or Jakarta, we actually go get it.
The devices come back to our facilities where they’re wiped, inspected, and either redeployed to your next hire or recycled for Rayda Credits toward new equipment. No more buying new laptops because your old ones are sitting in closets across three continents.
Quick Wins If You’re Handling This In-House
Not ready for a full outsourced solution? Here are things you can do right now:
Set up a FedEx or UPS account for prepaid returns. The cost of a return label is trivial compared to the cost of a lost device.
Create a standard “return kit” with a laptop box, prepaid label, and simple instructions. Ship it before the employee’s last day.
Build retrieval into your HRIS workflow. Most modern HR systems can trigger tasks or integrations when someone is marked as offboarding.
Track and report on recovery rates. You can’t improve what you don’t measure. Start tracking what percentage of devices come back, and share that number with leadership.
Make someone accountable. Not “IT” as a department—a specific person who owns the metric and the process.
Tell employees to keep their boxes. When equipment is issued, explicitly ask them to save the packaging for eventual return.
Consider a return incentive. Even $50-100 added to the final paycheck can dramatically improve compliance.
The Bottom Line
You’re never going to get 100% of laptops back. Some people will ghost, some devices will get “lost,” and some situations will be too complicated to pursue.
But you can get a lot closer to 100% than most companies do today. The keys:
- Make returns effortless for departing employees
- Communicate early, often, and across multiple channels
- Automate the process so nothing depends on someone remembering
- Start the expectation early, not at offboarding
- Have a real solution for international employees (not just “hope they ship it”)
- Track your recovery rate and hold someone accountable
And if that sounds like more work than you want to take on? That’s exactly why we built Rayda.
Book a demo and we’ll show you how to stop leaving money in people’s closets.
Got a laptop retrieval horror story? (Hopefully not involving firearms.) We’ve heard them all—but we’d love to hear yours. Drop us a line.
