Enhancing Employee Experience Through Smooth Laptop Returns
According to ElectroIQ, employees who leave on good terms are 2.9 times more likely to recommend their former employer to others. That makes the Offboarding an employee a critical moment—not just for your IT and HR teams, but for the employee leaving. Whether they are leaving on good terms or not, how the process is handled can leave a lasting impression. One of the most overlooked ways to enhance employee experience during this transition? You guessed it: laptop returns.
Yes, the way you manage a simple laptop return can say a lot about your company. It can influence how likely someone is to recommend your company to others, how secure your data stays, and how quickly your IT team can redeploy assets. Let's break down why smooth laptop returns matter, how they can improve employee experience, and what your company can do to make this process seamless.
Why Smooth Laptop Returns Matter More Than You Think
Returning a laptop might seem like a small task in the grand scheme of offboarding, but it’s one of the final touchpoints an employee has with your company. If the process is disorganized, slow, or unclear, it can turn a neutral or positive departure into a frustrating experience.
According to Gallup, only 12% of employees strongly agree that their organization does a great job of onboarding. Imagine how many feel the same about offboarding!
If you're putting all this energy into creating a great first impression, why let the last one fall flat? That’s exactly why companies looking to improve employee experience should reevaluate how they handle the return of company devices.
Laptop Returns: A Reflection of Your Brand Experience
Every step of the offboarding process contributes to your brand. If an employee laptop return is handled with care, convenience, and clear communication, it demonstrates that your company is organized and respectful—even when someone is on their way out.
A smooth laptop return process:
Reduces employee stress
Demonstrates professionalism and trust
Avoids confusion over return expectations
Helps the employee feel "closed out" of their job properly
All of these contribute to a positive employee experience, even during offboarding. When your company makes it easy to do the right thing, most employees will. This small shift can enhance employee experience at scale—especially in distributed and hybrid teams.
On the other hand, when employee laptop return instructions are unclear, disorganized, or require effort on the employee’s part (like having to get their own packaging or going to a shipping store), it can feel like you're making them clean up after you. That’s not a good look.
The Hidden Costs of Poor Laptop Return Processes
When laptop returns aren’t streamlined, the costs pile up fast—both tangible and intangible.
Lost or Delayed Assets
If employees don’t return laptops promptly, IT can’t redeploy them. New hires go without devices, or the company spends money on unnecessary replacements.
Security Risks
Devices that aren’t returned on time (or at all) pose a real data risk. Even if an employee isn’t malicious, an unreturned employee laptop can still store sensitive data, access to systems, and company emails.
Time Wasted by Internal Teams
Without an automated service like Retriever, your team has to:
Chase down unreturned laptops
Create shipping labels
Answer employee questions
Monitor package tracking manually
That’s time they could be spending on higher-priority projects.
Statistics That Show the Impact
According to a report by Oomnitza, 49% of senior IT professionals reported losing at least 5% of their technology assets due to employees leaving the company, and 42% experienced at least 5% of unauthorized access incidents from improper deprovisioning.
According to IBM, unmanaged IT assets and shadow IT can lead to increased security risks and budget inefficiencies—especially when IT asset recovery processes are lacking.
According to a study by Jacob Morgan, companies that invest in employee experience are 4 times more profitable than those that do not.
Improving a simple process like laptop returns can play a surprising role in protecting revenue, security, and brand loyalty. It’s also a meaningful way to improve employee experience, reduce attrition, and leave a positive final impression.
How Retriever Makes Laptop Returns Effortless
Retriever was built specifically to take the stress and guesswork out of laptop returns for both companies and employees.
Here’s how it works:
We ship a padded laptop return kit directly to the employee’s home, including clear instructions and a prepaid shipping label. 👉 See our Laptop Return Kit: https://helloretriever.com/store/p/laptop-return-kit
The employee packs and ships the employee laptop using the prepaid label—no out-of-pocket cost, no printing, no extra errands.
We handle all tracking and communication via automated emails and status updates on our easy-to-use dashboard:
If an employee delays the return, we send follow-up emails, removing that task from your HR or IT team’s plate.
This level of ease does more than save time. It helps improve employee experience by reducing uncertainty, frustration, and manual effort. Employees feel taken care of, and you retain control over your assets.
Retriever Enterprise: For Teams Managing Multiple Laptop Returns
For companies managing multiple laptop returns each month, our Enterprise plan gives you everything you need: https://helloretriever.com/enterprise
A centralized dashboard to track every device in real time
Default return settings to standardize how returns are handled
The ability to invite team members and assign return tasks
API access to integrate with your IT help desk tools like ServiceNow, Teqtivity, or Zapier
This makes it easy to enhance employee experience at scale—whether you're managing dozens or hundreds of transitions. More importantly, it removes the inconsistency that can erode trust in your offboarding process.
Beyond Returns: Warehousing, Redeployment, and Laptop Disposal
A seamless offboarding process doesn't end when the laptop is dropped off at a shipping center. For IT teams managing large amounts of remote devices, what happens after the laptop returns is just as critical. Once a company laptop is back in your hands, it still needs to be assessed, stored, potentially reused, or responsibly disposed of.
Here’s where Retriever adds additional value beyond retrieval—by offering end-to-end solutions that help you track, store, and manage your employee laptops across their entire lifecycle.
Laptop Warehousing and Redeployment
When a company is managing dozens or even hundreds of employee laptops, having a secure, organized, and efficient warehousing solution is key. Rather than letting returned laptops collect dust in an IT closet—or worse, get lost in the shuffle—Retriever provides a scalable, secure system for long-term or short-term storage with the option to redeploy devices on demand.
With Retriever’s laptop warehousing and redeployment services, here’s what your IT team gains:
Secure, climate-controlled storage to keep laptops in ideal condition
Condition checks to assess any damage or issues upon return
Cleaning and repairs to restore devices to like-new condition
OS provisioning and reconfiguration based on your company’s IT needs
A centralized dashboard for tracking where each employee laptop is at any point in time—whether it’s in storage, out for redeployment, or awaiting disposal
Being able to trigger redeployments with just a few clicks drastically improves efficiency for your IT team, especially in hybrid or remote-first environments where devices are frequently cycled in and out of use.
Plus, this approach reduces waste and maximizes ROI on your existing devices. Instead of buying a new laptop for every hire, you can redeploy what you already have—faster, safer, and with complete visibility.
By treating laptop returns as the beginning of the next lifecycle, rather than the end of the current one, companies can enhance operational efficiency and improve employee experience—not just for the person leaving, but for the new hire receiving the redeployed device. 👉 Learn more about our laptop warehousing and deployment services
Secure and Environmentally Responsible Laptop Disposal
Not every employee laptop is going to be ready for a second life. Some are just too old or worn out to redeploy—and that’s okay. But even those devices still need to be handled the right way. If a laptop gets forgotten or tossed without being properly wiped, it can turn into a serious security risk. That’s why it’s so important to make sure every device is securely processed and disposed of according to industry standards.
Research indicates that many companies still aren’t handling data erasure the right way. Instead of using secure, trackable methods, they’ll just physically shred the device—without keeping a proper record of what was wiped. The problem? That kind of approach can easily lead to data slipping through the cracks, opening the door to breaches and compliance issues down the line.
Retriever offers a laptop disposal service that handles everything for you—from pickup to certified destruction.
Our disposal process includes:
Data erasure using industry-approved protocols, including DoD 5220.22-M and NIST 800-88
Environmental compliance, ensuring devices are recycled or disposed of in accordance with applicable laws and regulations
SOC 2 Type 2 certification, ensuring your data and hardware are managed with the highest level of care
Certificate of Data Destruction for every laptop processed, stored securely in your Retriever dashboard for easy auditing
Proper disposal doesn’t just reduce legal and compliance risk—it also supports your sustainability goals and demonstrates to departing employees that you take data privacy seriously, even after their last day.
From an employee experience perspective, knowing that their data is securely erased and the hardware they used won’t end up in a landfill helps instill trust—even during the offboarding process.
When paired with Retriever’s laptop return and warehousing services, laptop disposal becomes a seamless final step in the asset lifecycle.
FAQ: Common Laptop Return and Offboarding Questions
How can technology be used to improve employee experience?
Technology simplifies tedious processes. Automating laptop returns and using digital tracking, reminders, and self-service dashboards can create a smoother transition during offboarding—a key moment to enhance employee experience.
How to get an employee to return a laptop?
Make it easy. Send them a padded laptop return kit, prepaid label, and simple instructions. The less friction, the more likely they are to comply quickly. Services like Retriever automate this from end to end.
What if an employee refuses to return company laptop?
If a former employee refuses, document your outreach and escalate to HR or legal. In many states, withholding final pay is not legal, but retrieval fees may be deductible. Retriever’s follow-up system helps reduce this risk by increasing compliance before it becomes a problem.
What to do when employees don't return equipment?
Have a backup plan in place. Use automated reminders and document attempts to recover the asset. If the device is never returned, deauthorize remote access and order secure disposal. With Retriever, missed returns are rare due to our email series and tracking.
What to do before returning laptop to employer?
Employees should:
Back up personal data
Log out of personal accounts
Disable Find My Mac / device tracking apps
Remove any stickers or accessories not provided by the company
Follow the provided instructions in the laptop return kit
Final Thoughts: The Lasting Value of a Smooth Offboarding Experience
A smooth, respectful, and convenient laptop return process can enhance employee experience in ways that matter—not just for the person leaving, but for the team managing the transition. It saves time, secures data, protects your budget, and improves your brand reputation. And honestly? It just makes everyone's life easier.
Ready to Make Laptop Returns Effortless?
Whether you're managing offboarding for five employees or five hundred, Retriever has you covered. From retrieval to storage, redeployment, and disposal—we’re your partner in the complete employee laptop lifecycle.
👉 Discover our Laptop Return Services today