微旺爱海
Aihire
The hard part of building an overseas team is rarely finding people — it is who employs them, who runs payroll, and who carries employer liability. An Employer of Record lets you put people to work legally before your local entity exists.
An Employer of Record (EOR) is an arrangement where we employ the person on paper while they work under your direction: employment contracts, statutory contributions such as EPF/SOCSO/EIS in Malaysia, monthly payroll and onboarding/offboarding sit with us; you keep day-to-day management and performance. It fits three situations: no local entity yet, entity in progress but people needed now, and validating a market before committing to incorporation.
You keep full direction of the work; the compliance and admin layer of employment sits with us.
Contracts drafted and signed under local employment law — term, probation, resignation and termination handled per local requirements.
In Malaysia: employer-side EPF (provident fund), SOCSO (social security), EIS (employment insurance) and similar contributions, declared and paid monthly.
Monthly payroll, payslips, income-tax related filings, plus FX and cross-border settlement arrangements.
Onboarding paperwork, leave management, offboarding settlements and first-line response to employee queries.
A simple test: will the people be there long term? Will the business? If you are validating a market with a few hires, or incorporation is in progress but the candidate cannot wait, an EOR is the faster path. If the business is clearly long-term and headcount will keep growing, your own entity plus an in-house HR function is usually the cheaper end state.
They are not mutually exclusive either. A common path: use an EOR for the first 5–10 hires while incorporation runs in parallel, then migrate the employment relationships to your entity once it exists. The value of an EOR is decoupling hiring from entity setup, which otherwise block each other.
| Employer of Record | Own entity | Recruitment only | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it solves | Legal employment + employer liability | Long-term operating presence | Where the people come from |
| Speed to first hire | Fastest (sign and onboard) | Slowest (registration, banking) | Depends on the role |
| Employer compliance | We carry it | You carry it | You carry it |
| Best stage | Validation / entity in progress | Long-term operation | Any stage |
| Can it stack? | Stacks with recruitment | Stacks with everything | Stacks with EOR |
The most common confusion: an EOR solves how to employ someone legally once they exist; recruitment delivery solves where the person comes from. One is an HR service, the other is a hiring service.
The most common combination: we find, negotiate and land the candidate (recruitment delivery), then employ them through our EOR. If you already have the candidate and only need a compliant employment channel, you can take the EOR half alone. See also HR services and flexible staffing and RPO.
Responsibilities, salary structure, work location and start date — these drive the contract and the cost structure.
We confirm contract terms, statutory contribution treatment and fees, then both sides sign the service agreement.
The employment contract is signed with us as the legal employer; the employee works per your direction.
Payroll plus EPF/SOCSO/EIS and similar items handled monthly, with a settlement statement to you.
If you incorporate later, employment relationships can be migrated to your entity under local rules — without losing the people.
Social security, tax and employment regulations change; always defer to the latest guidance from Malaysia's Ministry of Human Resources, EPF and related authorities. We set out the split of responsibilities in the proposal, and legal or tax positions should be confirmed with your own advisers.
Both mean the person works for you while formally employed elsewhere. An EOR's core value is giving a company without a local entity a legal employment channel — the emphasis is on carrying compliance. Staffing/dispatch is more common for companies that already have a local entity and want flexible headcount. Which one fits depends on whether you have a local entity. See HR services and flexible staffing.
We are, in the legal sense. Day-to-day direction, appraisal and management stay with you. That is the standard structure for this arrangement, and the split of responsibilities is written into the service agreement.
Typically a per-employee-per-month service fee that varies with headcount and role complexity. We break "employee gross salary + employer statutory contributions + service fee" into separate lines in every proposal, so the real cost is never a surprise. More background: how recruitment and staffing services are priced.
It depends on contract and document preparation, but it is far faster than incorporation — an entity setup runs to months, while EOR contracting is measured in days.
Yes. Employment relationships can be migrated to your entity under local rules. That is the standard path: start on an EOR, migrate when the entity lands, and never lose a candidate to a waiting period.
Go deeper on the services and markets behind this page.
Send us the role, headcount, language requirements and target start date. Our consultants respond around the clock and come back with a hiring plan you can act on.
Book a consultation →