It is Monday morning. Your new hire logs into Slack for their first day.
Their first message to the team channel: "Hi everyone, excited to be here. Quick question - any idea when my laptop might arrive?"
This scenario plays out thousands of times every week at companies that hire remotely. The new hire is enthusiastic, prepared, and ready to work. The laptop is somewhere between a warehouse, a customs office, and a courier depot.
According to research from Talmundo, 43% of new employees wait more than a week to receive basic workstation tools. Forty percent do not receive the minimum equipment they need to start their role. These are not numbers from 2020. They reflect how most distributed companies are operating right now.
The cost of getting this wrong is not just a frustrating first morning. It compounds.
What the first day without a laptop actually costs
A new hire who cannot work on day one is not just inconvenient. They are absorbing salary cost without contributing output. They are forming a first impression of the company's operational competence. And they are setting a precedent for how they will feel about working there.
Research from Gallup shows that employees who experience strong onboarding are 2.6 times more likely to feel satisfied and committed to their organisation. The device experience is a central part of that first impression - it is the physical signal that the company was ready for them.
A laptop that arrives three days late communicates: we did not plan for you.
Beyond the employee experience, there is a practical productivity gap. Most roles require specific software, configured access, and enrolled device management before work can begin. A temporary device borrowed from a colleague, or a personal laptop pressed into service, does not solve this. It creates security gaps and access problems that IT then has to untangle.
Why it keeps happening
The failure is rarely a single mistake. It is a sequence of small gaps that compound into a late delivery.
Gap 1: The trigger is too late. The device order is placed when the start date is confirmed, not when the offer is accepted. For a cross-border delivery requiring customs clearance, this leaves insufficient lead time. The minimum for a safe cross-border delivery is 7 to 10 business days. Most companies work with 3 to 5.
Gap 2: Nobody owns the process end to end. HR handles the new hire communication. IT handles the device. Neither fully owns the delivery experience. The handoff between them is where things go wrong - incorrect addresses, missed country requirements, nobody confirming a delivery window with the employee.
Gap 3: Documentation errors on cross-border shipments. A missing commercial invoice, an incorrect HS commodity code, or a misdeclared value triggers a customs hold that adds 3 to 10 business days to transit time. These errors are completely preventable with the correct process. They happen because most IT teams are not customs specialists.
Gap 4: The packaging assumption. Many companies assume a standard courier service and a cardboard box are sufficient for shipping a laptop internationally. They are not. Inadequate packaging leads to damaged devices in transit, and some carriers will reject the consignment entirely if the packaging does not meet their standards for electronics.
Gap 5: No tracking visibility shared with the employee. The device is in transit, but the new hire has no way to know where it is or when it will arrive. They contact HR. HR contacts IT. IT contacts the carrier. The carrier provides a tracking number that does not work outside the origin country. The new hire still does not know.
The geography problem
For companies hiring in one country, getting a device to a new hire is logistically simple. The gaps above exist but are manageable.
For companies hiring across borders, each additional country adds a layer of complexity. Customs requirements vary by country pair. Carrier coverage varies by destination. Import duties apply in some directions and not others. Lithium battery restrictions affect which carriers will handle the shipment and whether it can travel by air.
The EU to UK direction is particularly common and particularly prone to failure. Post-Brexit, this is a full customs transaction in both directions. A commercial invoice, HS commodity code, declared value, and customs clearance are required. Companies that treat this as a standard EU-to-EU delivery are the ones whose devices end up in customs holds for a week.
For the country-specific detail on the most complex destinations, see our guide to moving IT devices across borders, which covers 21 countries with the most demanding customs requirements.
What good looks like
The companies that consistently get devices to new hires on day one have built a process around one principle: start earlier than feels necessary.
When an offer is accepted, the device order is placed. Not when contracts are signed. Not when the start date is confirmed. When the offer is accepted.
The lead time for a cross-border delivery in Europe is 7 to 10 business days from order to delivery, assuming correct documentation and no customs delays. Buffer that by 3 days. You now need to place the order 10 to 13 business days before the start date. That feels early. It is the correct timeline.
The specific steps:
Before the offer is accepted: confirm the delivery address, the country, and any known customs considerations for that country.
At offer acceptance: place the device order. Confirm the exact delivery address. Check whether the recipient will be available during the expected delivery window. If they will not, identify an alternative arrangement - a neighbor, a building manager, a local office.
At order placement: confirm customs documentation is complete and correct. Commercial invoice, declared replacement value, correct description of goods. For EU to UK, confirm whether Postponed VAT Accounting applies.
During transit: share tracking with the employee directly. Not through HR. Not through IT. The employee should be able to check the status themselves.
Before day one: confirm delivery. Confirm MDM enrollment. Confirm the new hire can log in and access the systems they need. Do not assume - check.
The People Ops angle
This is not just an IT problem. People Ops and HR are the ones who hear from new hires when the device is not there. They are the ones managing the relationship in those first critical days.
For HR teams, the device experience is part of the onboarding experience they own. A new hire who sends "where is my laptop?" on their first day is not having a good onboarding experience, regardless of how well everything else went.
The practical fix for People Ops is to own the trigger. When an offer is accepted, People Ops confirms the delivery address and flags the new hire's country to IT. That flag - "new hire in Netherlands, starting April 28" - should generate a device order immediately, not when the employment contract is countersigned three weeks later.
For a full checklist of what HR and People Ops should be handling in the device management process, see our IT device management checklist for HR teams.
The managed approach
For teams doing occasional international hires, the in-house process above is manageable with discipline.
For teams doing regular international hiring across multiple countries, the in-house process requires someone to be a part-time customs and logistics specialist. That is not a reasonable allocation of IT or HR time.
The alternative is a device operations partner who handles the entire logistics layer. IT places the order. The packaging, customs documentation, carrier booking, insurance, and tracking are handled by someone whose job is making cross-border device delivery work reliably.
At Raal, every order includes tested transit packaging, customs clearance for the destination country, full insurance at replacement value, and real-time tracking. IT places the order in five minutes. The device arrives on day one.
If your team is regularly losing the race against the start date, run the cost comparison at raal.io/estimate. The numbers are usually more straightforward than people expect.
FAQ
How far in advance should I order a laptop for a new hire in another EU country? Minimum 5 business days. 7 to 10 is safer and accounts for customs documentation processing, carrier delays, and delivery scheduling. Always confirm the employee's availability for delivery.
Why do laptops get held in customs? The most common causes are incorrect or missing commercial invoices, wrong HS commodity codes, misdeclared values, and missing documentation for lithium batteries in air freight. All are preventable with correct documentation.
Who should own the device delivery process - HR or IT? Neither exclusively. HR owns the trigger - confirming the new hire's details and flagging the start date. IT owns the execution - placing the order and ensuring the device is configured and enrolled. A shared checklist and a clear handoff point between the two prevents the gaps where devices get delayed.
What happens if the laptop arrives after the start date? Confirm what the new hire can use in the interim - a loaner device, a temporary personal device with secure access if your policy allows, or a delayed start for device-dependent tasks. Communicate proactively. A new hire who knows the situation and understands the plan has a significantly better experience than one who is simply waiting without information.
