Remote Employee Returning Equipment: 5 Steps To Avoid The Problems

It's 2023 and the challenges of retrieving remote employee equipment continues to pose a huge problem. Companies have tried to work towards developing their own in-house strategies to address this issue, but they still grapple with the complexities of recovering equipment when an employee departs from the organization.

In extreme cases, some companies have even resorted to legal recourse, taking individuals to court to reclaim their valuable assets and protect their data. 

This has impacted the way most globally distributed companies with high growth operate, slowing down their ability to expand internationally. Especially when it comes to equipping or transferring company-owned devices from one end of the world to another. 

In this short guide, we will walk you through how we handle the equipment returns of our clients in 150+ countries, if you are interested in learning more, check out our pricing.

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1. Have A Remote Employee Equipment Agreement Or Policy In Place

Trust is one of the most important aspects of a remote working relationship.

It helps ensure that the employer is comfortable giving their remote employee equipment and that the employee knows they are not being spied on while using it. 

Although you establish trust in the hiring process, many things can happen during employment that can break it. 

If the contract ends on bad terms, you can’t guarantee that you get everything back that you gave, just like in a romantic relationship (we all have that crazy ex). 

By having both parties sign a legally binding agreement, the employer is legally obligated to provide functioning equipment and the employee to return it once they stop working.

The other option would be to offer a WFH stipend as part of your remote work lawsuit policy. 

Check out our employee equipment agreement template here.

2. Start Offboarding Process

In most offboarding scenarios before the COVID 19 pandemic, the terminated remote employee would typically get an email from the IT department or HR department asking to turn the laptop in.

If the remote worker left because they found a new role, they willingly go through the offboarding process.

However, if they were terminated, it might be hard to get a hold of them through emails or calls. People get busy, or they might purposely ignore the outreach and company policy.

This prolongs the recovery process until the supervisor thinks that the home office equipment might be at the bottom of the ocean.

Once the employer finally receives confirmation that the remote first culture employee is sending the computer equipment, they must manually change the item and software status in their database. 

The next step in this inefficient process is for the company to decide what they want to do with the equipment and where it will be sent.

An employee’s apartment, storage facility, or a new remote employee for their onboarding are all options they will have to consider if they don’t already have a system in place.

At Growrk, you have an end-to-end inventory management suite that follows the life cycle of each item. All you have to do is select the employee and change their status to off-boarding.

We automatically send an email and coordinate with you on where you want to send the equipment or place it in one of our global warehouses. 

Then we handle everything to get it to the required destination.

3. Sending Shipping Materials

In the past, the IT or Human Resources department had to print the shipping labels themselves and coordinate sending boxes to an ex-remote team member's house. 

Then they had to track the box through a third-party service and wait to see that it was finally en route to where they wanted it to go. The problem here, is these departments are on the hook until the employee actually sends the device.

Even worse, when they ask the employee to send the device themselves, they have to pay out of pocket for the shipping materials and transportation expense. This creates unnecessary friction in what should be a simple task.

At GroWrk, we have a global network of partners and warehouses so that once we know what you want to do with the device, we contact our partner to come and collect it.

Depending on their location, they will send a box with the shipping label to the ex-employee or come personally to pick up the device. 

The device is then transferred to their warehouse, and there is a tracking number sent to you so that you know exactly how long it will take.

4. Is the Equipment Damaged or Does it Need Maintenance?

In the worst-case scenario, if the equipment is damaged, it may take weeks before it is actually sent to a technician. It first has to be sent to another current employee or company storage and then be evaluated. If they discover any issues, then it gets sent to a technician. 

With our partners, there is always a technician on-site in their storage facility. So once the equipment arrives, you will get a notification that the item status has changed to “Inspection.” 

If the item needs maintenance, we get a repair order telling us what is wrong. We then communicate that to you and change the item status to “Maintenance.”

If the item is damaged beyond repair or you don’t want to use it anymore, we activate retirement protocol and change the item status to “out of service.” 

5. Where Does The Item Go Next?

During the pandemic, it was common that if a company didn’t have a dedicated storage facility, someone in the IT department would just have a stack of laptops sitting in their living room or wherever they had space. 

There are obvious concerns about security in this situation, and you have to factor in that now that one person is responsible for coordinating and sending the equipment once a new person joins. 

Our global warehouse partners will wipe any device and store it once it passes inspection or goes under maintenance. 

The item status is then changed to “Inventory pool” and is ready to be shipped out from the secure location as soon as a request is made.

No complications, no unnecessary time spent on logistics. All you have to do is submit where you want the equipment sent, and the warehouse partner will send the device, and we will provide you with a tracking number. 

Item status will change to "Order Processing" until it arrives at the new remote employee’s location when it goes to "Delivered."  

What Happens When a Remote Employee Doesn’t Return Company Property?

In the absolute worst-case scenario that you lose contact with a terminated employee and they still have company equipment, you aren’t left with many options.

In the United States, you can’t legally withhold the final paycheck from a terminated employee. You also don’t want to go through the excruciating process of filing a police report. 

If you contact a retrieval service, you have no central way of tracking the equipment and will have to manually update its progress as it finally gets back to your IT department. 

Plus, they don’t have global coverage, so forget about getting equipment back from disgruntled international remote employees.

GroWrk removes the conflict from any return process by acting as an intermediary between a terminated employee and the employer. There isn’t any need for either party to follow up because all the steps happen within the dashboard. 

The best part, you can get the equipment back from anywhere. 

Employee Equipment Return Form

If you need an employee equipment return form for your internal documentation, check out this template below. 

Equipment Description:

Model Number:

Serial Number: 

Condition: Good (turns on, no visible damage) ☐ Fair (turns on, scratches or blemishes to body) ☐ Poor (turns on, scratches or cracks in screen) ☐ Not Working

Description of damage:

Other Office Supplies Returned: ☐ Charger ☐ Case if provided

Name of Returnee: _____________________________________________________ Signature of Returnee: __________________________________________________ 

Name of Receiver: ______________________________________________________ Signature of Receiver: ___________________________________________________

Date of Return: ________________________________________________________

Grow remote with GroWrk. We provide and manage laptops, devices, other equipment and services to remote teams in over 150 countries.

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