The Ultimate Checklist for Equipping Your Remote Employees (2026)

Why the Right Equipment Actually Matters

"I truly believe that onboarding is an art. Each new employee brings with them a potential to achieve and succeed. To lose the energy of a new hire through poor onboarding is an opportunity lost." — Sarah Wetzel, Director of Human Resources at engage:BDR

Wetzel's point cuts to the heart of a challenge many organizations overlook: onboarding either captures a new hire's momentum or kills it.

Providing employees with the right equipment at the right time is a signal of how much the organization values its people. Poor onboarding doesn't just frustrate new hires; it slows productivity, erodes trust, and squanders the enthusiasm employees bring on day one.

Here are all the reasons equipping employees right is paramount.

• When employees get the right equipment from day one, they start contributing instead of waiting. A perfectly spec'd laptop that arrives two weeks late still costs you two weeks of lost contribution. Research shows that 43% of new hires wait more than a week just to receive basic workstation tools. During that gap, you're still paying full salary for someone who can't meaningfully work. The same logic applies to office furniture and workspace assignments. Every missing piece delays when a person feels settled and functional.
• Right-fit equipment reduces the kind of low-grade friction that builds up over time. If someone’s laptop can't handle the software they need or their workspace is noisy and uncomfortable, they might not always raise the issue. However, over time, they work a little slower, take more breaks and gradually disengage. This steady, compounding loss of focus and energy across your workforce is often hard to measure.
• Poorly provisioned devices are also a security concern that grows with every shortcut. When IT has to rush, it might resort to allocating older machines or previously used hardware that hasn't been properly wiped. They may also assign employees devices that can't run current security patches, which can expand your organization's attack surface. The average cost of a single data breach reached $4.44 million globally in 2025 and endpoint gaps are consistently among the most common ways attackers get in.

   

• The workspace you give someone is a signal of how much you value their work. The workspace a company provides is a signal of how much it values the people doing the work. When organizations get this right, the effects are measurable. New hires reach productivity faster, stay in their roles longer and direct their energy toward meaningful work rather than compensating for what is missing.

How to Equip Your Remote Team?

We saw how providing employees with the right equipment is critical for smooth, uninterrupted work.

But how do you actually provide them with the right equipment?

Turns out, there are several ways companies use to provide employees with equipment. Some offer the equipment directly, while others pay new hires to buy their own equipment.

But there is no universal provisioning model. Each approach carries its own trade-offs.

Below, we discuss common provisioning methods companies use with their advantages and disadvantages.

Direct Provisioning

This is the most common employee provisioning model. The company purchases hardware centrally and ships it to employees before their start dates. This means you own the asset and control what software, security settings, and peripherals come in the box.

IT teams typically set up devices via MDM tools like Jamf or Microsoft Intune before shipment, so employees receive a machine that is already enrolled, encrypted, and policy-compliant on arrival.

The model, however, requires you to build procurement workflows, vendor relationships, and an asset register. If you have employees located internationally, the process can become even more complex because of customs delays or vendor coordination.

But the more persistent and underappreciated problem is device retrieval at offboarding. You legally own hardware sitting in someone's home in another jurisdiction, and recovering it requires either a reliable local logistics partner or quietly writing it off.

The best IT teams opting for this approach partner with a hardware lifecycle management solution like Workwize.

Workwize lets you manage all equipment shipping from one platform. We handle the logistics and let you track them live, so cross-border equipment deliveries and retrievals become much easier than direct vendor coordination. Plus, Workwize lets you track everything from one platform, so you never lose track of where a device is.

Best for: Teams under 30 in one or two geographies, security-sensitive industries or organizations where a consistent and controlled onboarding experience is a deliberate priority.

Equipment Stipends

For small teams that want to avoid the logistics overhead of direct provision, stipends are the most natural next step. The model is straightforward: employees receive a fixed cash allowance depending on role to purchase their own equipment independently.

Because the employee owns what they buy, there is no logistical hurdle to deliver or retrieve devices.

However, the model shifts several problems to the employee and IT. Without a clear eligible-spend policy, purchasing decisions are inconsistent, and inconsistent hardware means inconsistent support overhead. The tax treatment compounds this further: in most jurisdictions, a cash stipend is treated as taxable income unless it is structured as an accountable reimbursement plan tied to business-use receipts.

How and when the stipend is paid also matters significantly for employees who cannot afford to front the cost and wait.

The other risk is visibility. Once a stipend is paid out, most companies lose all sight of what was purchased, whether it meets security standards, and where the device ends up when the employee leaves.

Teams using a platform like Workwize can sidestep this by issuing stipends through a managed catalogue.

Employees still choose their own equipment, but only from pre-approved options that meet your security and MDM requirements.

That way, you preserve the autonomy employees want without giving up the oversight your IT team needs.

Best for: Senior individual contributors in roles where personal hardware preference directly affects output. Roles like engineering, design or video production, where the company is comfortable forgoing full standardization but still needs a baseline of security compliance.

Expense Reimbursement

For companies still figuring out their equipment policy, reimbursement is often the first model they land on. Employees purchase what they need and then submit receipts in accordance with a defined policy to get reimbursed. It requires no vendor relationships or logistics overhead, which makes it an easy default for early-stage teams.

The problem is that this model isn‘t scalable. Once you are managing 50 employees across multiple countries, finance teams can end up buried in receipts they cannot efficiently process. This reimbursement lag creates real cash flow pressure on employees who have paid out of pocket.

Cost limits are only on paper if the policies aren't strictly enforced.

Another issue is that you have no control over what employees actually buy. Someone might purchase a device running an unsupported operating system or that simply does not meet the spec requirements for their role, and you only find out when IT tries to onboard them.

Teams that have outgrown ad hoc reimbursement but are not ready for full direct provision often use Workwize to bridge the gap.

Employers still expense equipment, but purchases are made through an approved catalogue that ensures every device meets company standards before reimbursement is triggered.

Best for: Sub-10-person teams in a single geography or as a temporary measure for isolated hires in a new market. It should have a planned replacement, not a permanent status.

Device-as-a-Service (DaaS)

DaaS removes the equipment lifecycle burden entirely. Rather than buying hardware outright, companies lease it through a managed provider. The devices are typically billed per device per month. The DaaS provider handles procurement, configuration, shipping, MDM enrollment and retrieval.

DaaS makes the most sense for teams with regular hirings and offboardings across multiple countries.

The economics only work in your favor if your team has reasonable onboarding and offboarding or operates across enough geographies to make in-house logistics management painful.

Always check what your DaaS provider covers before committing.

Many DaaS vendors oversell their global reach and gaps tend to surface in exactly the markets where you most need reliability.

Workwize can be a reasonable DaaS alternative for organizations with 200 - 5000 FTEs. It addresses this through in-country warehousing across 100+ countries, meaning devices ship locally rather than across borders, which removes the customs variable from the equation entirely.

Best for: Internationally distributed teams with regular hiring and offboarding or companies that want predictable per-device costs and no internal asset management overhead.

BYOD (Bring Your Own Device)

In a BYOD model, employees use their own laptops, phones, and tablets for work. The company does not buy or ship anything. Most companies that go this route offer a small monthly allowance, usually $50–$100, to help cover the wear and tear and costs of using personal devices for work.

The appeal is obvious. There is nothing to procure, track or recover when someone leaves. For small teams or companies working entirely in browser-based tools, it can work fine.

The problem is that personal devices are not the best work devices. An employee's home laptop might be running an outdated operating system, shared with other family members or simply not powerful enough for the job.

Moreover, your IT team has no control over it. And in most cases, they cannot enforce the same security standards they would on a company-owned machine.

There is also a legal dimension that catches many companies off guard. In several countries, particularly across Europe, employers have limited rights to monitor or manage personally owned devices, even when they are being used for work.

BYOD works best when the boundaries are clear: a written policy, a meaningful allowance and a defined list of the security requirements employees must meet. Without those three things, it is less a strategy and more an assumption that nothing will go wrong.

Best for: Contractors, part-time roles and very early-stage teams where the entire workflow runs on SaaS tools and budget is a genuine constraint.

Hardware Checklist: The Essentials

These are the must-haves for all employees and are central components of their home-office setups. That said, not every essential looks the same across roles.

Reliable Internet Connection

Whether your company covers the cost or your remote employees foot the bill, a stable connection is non-negotiable.

Aim for at least 50 Mbps download and 10 Mbps upload for general use.

Bump those significantly for employees who do heavy video conferencing or regularly transfer large files. A backup plan, such as a mobile hotspot, is worth recommending for anyone in an area with unreliable infrastructure.

Who needs this: everyone without exception.

Computer

For computers, rather than focusing on specific models, track the specs that actually matter for the role. For general productivity work, an Intel i5 or AMD Ryzen 5 processor with 8GB RAM is sufficient.

For developers, video editors or anyone running resource-intensive applications, look for an Intel i7/i9 or AMD Ryzen 7/9 with at least 16GB RAM. Prioritize battery life for employees who work across locations and ensure the OS is compatible with your company's core tools before purchasing.

Who needs this: Everyone. Spec requirements vary significantly by role. Don't issue a one-size-fits-all machine.

Monitor

A larger external display meaningfully reduces eye strain and increases the working surface for most roles.

Look for a display with at least a 24-inch screen and IPS or OLED panel technology for accurate colour and comfortable viewing angles.

Built-in cameras and microphones are a useful bonus, but should not replace dedicated communication equipment for roles involving frequent calls. Employees using laptops with screens above 15.6 inches may not need a separate monitor, depending on their workload.

Who needs this: Most employees benefit, but it is especially important for developers, designers, finance teams and anyone managing multiple documents simultaneously.

Multifunction Printer

Remote work is predominantly digital, but paper has not disappeared.

Go straight for a multifunction device that combines printing, scanning and copying. There is no good reason to provision these separately.

Not every employee needs one, but for roles involving contracts, compliance documents or client-facing paperwork, it is a genuine essential rather than a nice-to-have.

Who needs this: Legal, finance, operations and any client-facing roles that handle physical documents. Most purely digital roles can skip this entirely.

External Storage or Cloud Backup

Data loss is one of the most disruptive things that can happen to a remote employee. Unlike an office where IT can intervene quickly, there is no one down the hall to help recover a corrupted drive or an accidentally deleted file.

Having a clear storage solution in place before something goes wrong is far cheaper than dealing with the fallout afterward.

For employees handling large media files, external hard drives remain the most practical option. Prioritize durability and storage capacity over brand. For employees working primarily in SaaS tools, a well-configured cloud storage plan (Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive or similar) is sufficient and easier to manage at the IT level.

Who needs this: Essential for designers, video editors and anyone handling large or sensitive files. Lower priority for roles that live entirely in cloud-based tools.

Surge Protectors

Often overlooked, surge protectors are inexpensive insurance against power fluctuations that can damage equipment or cause data loss.

They are worth including in any equipment package regardless of location, but particularly for employees in regions with aging or unstable electrical infrastructure.

Who needs this: Everyone, as a standard inclusion in any equipment shipment.