A complete step-by-step guide for Maple Home to legally employ your Syrian operations staff — covering every document, cost, timeline, and form you need. No legal jargon.
What you are doing, why it works, and what to expect.
Maple Home Sdn Bhd
Short-stay service apartment management. 2,000+ rooms across KL & Selangor. Qualifies as a Services sector employer for EP purposes.
Syrian national. UNHCR-registered 7 years in Malaysia. Currently working in Operations. Also has IT and design skills. No criminal record.
Syrian / UNHCR 7 YrsEmployment Pass Category III
For skilled/executive roles. Salary RM 5,000–9,999/month. Valid up to 5 years total. Requires succession plan.
Click each phase to expand the full details. Complete them in order.
EP Category III salary minimum is set by the Expatriate Services Division (ESD) under the Ministry of Home Affairs. From 1 June 2026, the revised threshold is RM 5,000/month basic. Allowances (transport, housing, mobile) do NOT count toward this figure — only basic monthly salary as stated in the employment contract.
📎 Reference: ESD Official Guidelines — esd.imi.gov.my
| Category | Basic Salary/Month | Max Tenure |
|---|---|---|
| Category I | RM 20,000 and above | No limit |
| Category III ← Use this | RM 5,000 – RM 9,999 | 5 years cumulative |
| Category II | RM 10,000 – RM 19,999 | No limit |
RM 5,000–6,500/month is market-appropriate for an Operations Executive in a KL service apartment. Pitching RM 5,500–6,000 is safer than the absolute minimum — it shows the role is genuinely valued.
Operations Executive — or alternatively Property Operations Executive. Both are honest, professional, and qualify for EP Category III in the services sector.
In the job description, include responsibilities that use his IT and design knowledge naturally within operations. For example:
This is truthful — these are real tasks in a service apartment — and demonstrates why specialised skills (IT + ops + design) make this role difficult to fill locally.
ESD mandates that employers demonstrate a genuine effort to hire a Malaysian before approving a foreign national for an EP. This is reviewed — not rubber-stamped. A missing or weak job ad is one of the top reasons ESD rejects post applications.
📎 Reference: MyFutureJobs Official Portal — myfuturejobs.gov.my (government job board, mandatory for ESD evidence)
Post the multi-skill role clearly: "Operations Executive — property operations management, property management system (PMS), smart home/IoT coordination, digital listing management (Airbnb/Agoda/Booking.com), Canva/visual content." The combined requirement naturally limits the local applicant pool and strengthens your case.
A full succession plan template specific to this role and company is provided in the Succession Plan section below. In summary, the plan must show:
The plan is signed by a company director and uploaded as a PDF to ePASS.
For every EP holder Maple Home employs, the company must provide 3 structured, paid internships to Malaysian students per year. This is enforced from January 2026.
The ESD portal (ePASS / MYXpats Centre) at esd.imi.gov.my is the official Immigration Department platform for all Employment Pass applications. All submissions, approvals, renewals and notifications happen here — there is no paper process.
Company ESD profile approved within 3–7 working days. You will receive a confirmation email with login credentials.
To register with ESD, Maple Home must meet all of the following criteria. Tick each one before applying:
With 2,000+ rooms managed across KL and a sizeable local workforce, Maple Home easily meets all criteria.
📎 Reference: ESD Employer Guidelines — esd.imi.gov.my
An ESD-approved quota slot for one foreign employee in a specific role. Maple Home must justify to ESD why this particular role cannot be filled by a Malaysian. The post is approved first; then you attach the specific candidate (the Syrian worker) to the approved post in Phase 4.
esd.imi.gov.my → MYXpats Centre → New EP Application. All submissions are online only — no walk-in for initial applications.
Company documents (employer):
Employee documents (Syrian worker):
RM 300–600 (Category III), paid online at submission. Non-refundable.
Typically 10–20 working days from submission date. Syrian national cases may take slightly longer due to nationality verification — budget 20–30 working days. Track status online at esd.imi.gov.my.
Best case. Upload the bio page as the primary identity document. Proceed normally.
Submit the expired passport anyway — ESD accepts it as identity evidence. Additionally provide:
To renew a Syrian passport in Malaysia, contact the Embassy of Syria in Kuala Lumpur:
Address: No. 18, Jalan Kedah, off Jalan Ampang, 50450 Kuala Lumpur
Tel: +603-4251-1600
ESD sends an approval notification to the employer's ePASS account. Log in, download and print the EP Approval Letter. This letter is the worker's legal authority to work while the physical EP sticker is being processed — he must carry it at all times.
Pay the issuance fee online via ePASS (included in the RM 300–600 or a separate charge — the portal will indicate the exact amount). Payment is by credit/debit card or FPX.
The EP sticker (endorsement in travel document) is placed at the nearest Immigration Department (Jabatan Imigresen Malaysia) office. Book an appointment via:
KL Immigration offices (nearest to Maple Home operations):
Same-day or next working day at the immigration office. The worker is legally employed from the date on the Approval Letter — the sticker is the physical evidence.
Under ESD guidelines, all EP holders must have valid medical and hospitalisation insurance arranged by the employer. This is verified at each renewal.
Typical cost: RM 800–2,000/year. Get at least 3 quotes. Some insurers do not cover refugee-status employees — specify his status when requesting quotes and confirm acceptance before purchasing.
📎 Reference: Immigration Act 1959/63, Regulation 16 (employer obligations) — imi.gov.my
EP Category III has a 5-year maximum. If Maple Home wants to retain him beyond that:
Plan this promotion in Year 3–4 so the new EP application is ready before the Cat III expires.
Every document needed for the EP application. Red = mandatory. Yellow = strongly recommended.
All costs Maple Home must budget for. One-time and recurring.
| Item | Amount (RM) | Who Pays |
|---|---|---|
| ESD company registration fee | Free | Employer |
| EP application fee (Cat III) | RM 300–600 | Employer |
| Document translation (Arabic → English) | RM 100–300 per doc | Employer or Employee |
| Police clearance (PDRM) | RM 10 | Employee |
| Passport-size photos | RM 15–25 | Employee |
| MyFutureJobs job posting | Free | Employer |
| Immigration appointment (EP sticker) | RM 60–120 | Employer |
| Immigration lawyer fee (optional) | RM 1,500–4,000 | Employer |
| ONE-TIME TOTAL (estimated) | RM 2,000–5,500 | — |
| Item | Amount (RM/year) | Who Pays |
|---|---|---|
| Salary (basic minimum) | RM 60,000–78,000 (RM 5,000–6,500 × 12) | Employer |
| EPF — employer share (13%) ⚠ NOT mandatory for EP holders — voluntary only | RM 0 required | Employer |
| SOCSO — employer share (1.75%) Employment Injury Scheme only for EP holders | RM 1,050 (capped) | Employer |
| Medical / health insurance | RM 800–2,000 | Employer |
| EP renewal fee (annual) | RM 300–600 | Employer |
| 3 intern allowances (1:3 policy) | RM 1,800–5,400 (RM 500–1,500 × 3 × 4 months) | Employer |
| ANNUAL TOTAL (excl. EPF) | RM 63,950–87,050 | — |
EP Category III is not the only path. Depending on his current immigration status, there may be significantly cheaper legal options.
The Dokumen Pendaftaran Pelarian (DPP) is Malaysia's government refugee registration document, launched 1 January 2026 to replace reliance on UNHCR cards. It is managed by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MOHA) / Jabatan Imigresen Malaysia.
📎 Source: MOHA official — moha.gov.my | MOHA Facebook (official updates)
If the Syrian worker eventually registers under DPP and work rights are granted for services sector, Maple Home would not need to sponsor an EP. That would eliminate: EP fees, succession plan, and 1:3 internship mandate. Keep monitoring for updates.
The IMM13 is a special permit issued under Section 55(1) of the Immigration Act 1959/63, historically granted to Syrian refugees in Malaysia under the 2015 PPSMS programme. It gives the holder legal residency and the right to work.
If the worker already has an IMM13, Maple Home does not need to sponsor any immigration document at all. He renews the IMM13 himself annually. Maple Home just employs him with a normal contract — same as DPP, essentially no sponsorship burden.
Service apartments can apply for a foreign worker quota under the Track B / FWCMS system for roles classified as 3D (dirty, dangerous, difficult) — specifically housekeeping, cleaning, and facilities maintenance. The worker gets a Visit Pass (Temporary Employment) — VP(TE) instead of an Employment Pass.
| Item | VP(TE) Track B | EP Cat III |
|---|---|---|
| Annual levy | RM 640/year | N/A (no levy for EP) |
| FOMEMA medical | RM 180 (one-time) | Not required |
| Application/quota fee | RM 200–500 | RM 300–600 |
| Succession plan | Not required | Mandatory |
| 1:3 internship mandate | Not required | Mandatory |
| Minimum salary | Market rate / minimum wage | RM 5,000/month |
| Annual cost (ex-salary) | ~RM 1,000–1,500 | ~RM 3,950–9,050 |
To use this route, his official job title must match the approved 3D categories — e.g. Housekeeping Supervisor, Facilities Maintenance Coordinator, or Property Maintenance Technician. He cannot be listed as "Operations Executive" on a VP(TE). If Maple Home is comfortable with this title change and the lower-skilled visa category, this is a big cost saving.
| Option | Employer extra cost/month | Job title kept? | Succession plan? | Internships? | Stability |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A — DPP | ~RM 160–260 | Yes | No | No | Medium (sectors TBC) |
| B — IMM13 | ~RM 170–270 | Yes | No | No | Low (being phased out) |
| C — VP(TE) | ~RM 85–125 | No — must change | No | No | Medium (no upgrade path) |
| EP Cat III | ~RM 330–760 | Yes | Yes | Yes | High (5-yr EP, upgradeable) |
Why Operations Executive is the correct honest title — and how to write a role that uses all his skills.
Best choice. Honest, professional, qualifies for EP Cat III in services sector. Broad enough to include IT and design tasks naturally within an operations context.
RECOMMENDEDMore specific to service apartments. Also valid for Cat III. Use if you want to emphasise the property/hospitality angle.
ALSO VALIDDo not use these if his primary work is operations. Misrepresenting the role to ESD is document fraud — EP can be cancelled and company blacklisted.
DO NOT USEA ready-to-use succession plan template specifically for this role at Maple Home. Print on company letterhead, fill in, sign, and upload to ePASS.
LOCAL SUCCESSION PLAN Malaysia Expatriate Employment Policy — EP Category III Effective 1 June 2026 | Prepared by Maple Home Sdn Bhd ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ PART 1 — COMPANY & ROLE DETAILS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Company Name : Maple Home Sdn Bhd SSM Registration No : [Your SSM No.] Date of Plan : [DD/MM/YYYY] Prepared by : [HR Manager Name], Human Resources Expatriate Employee : [Syrian Worker Full Name] Nationality : Syrian Arab Republic UNHCR Card No. : [UNHCR Card Number] Passport No. : [Passport No. or "N/A — see UNHCR documentation"] EP Category : Category III Proposed Salary : RM [5,000–6,500] per month (basic) Job Title : Operations Executive Department : Operations Reports to : [Operations Manager / Director Name] EP Start Date : [DD/MM/YYYY] EP End Date : [DD/MM/YYYY — max 5 years from start] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ PART 2 — WHY AN EXPATRIATE IS REQUIRED ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Role Description: Maple Home Sdn Bhd is Malaysia's largest independent short-stay property management company, managing over 2,000 serviced apartment units across Kuala Lumpur and Selangor. The Operations Executive role requires a rare combination of: 1. Short-stay property operations experience 2. Proficiency with Property Management Systems (PMS), smart lock platforms (e.g. Yale, Igloohome), CCTV systems 3. Digital listing management (Airbnb, Agoda, Booking.com, Expedia) including visual content creation 4. Guest experience workflow management (check-in/out, housekeeping coordination, maintenance scheduling) 5. Operational analytics and reporting Evidence of Local Recruitment Attempt: • Job posted on MyFutureJobs on [Date] — Ad Reference: [Ref No.] • Job posted on JobStreet on [Date] • [X] applications received over [X] days • No candidate met the combined operations + IT + digital content requirements • Attached: screenshot of job postings, applicant summary ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ PART 3 — IDENTIFIED LOCAL SUCCESSOR ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Option A — Successor Already Identified: Name : [Malaysian Employee Full Name] NRIC No. : [IC Number] Current Title : [e.g. Operations Assistant / Admin Executive] Target Title : Operations Executive (upon full succession) Target Date : [MM/YYYY — by Year 5 of EP tenure] Option B — Successor Not Yet Identified: Maple Home commits to recruit a Malaysian Operations Executive trainee by [Q2/Q3 of Year 1]. The role will be posted on MyFutureJobs and JobStreet. Upon hire, the training plan in Part 4 will commence immediately. Identified Skill Gaps to Address: 1. Short-stay property management system operations 2. Digital listing content creation and optimisation 3. Smart property technology (locks, CCTV, IoT sensors) 4. Guest experience management under high-volume conditions ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ PART 4 — TRAINING & KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER SCHEDULE ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Activity Frequency Duration Responsible ───────────────────────────────── ────────── ───────── ──────────── Daily operations briefing & Daily 30 min Expatriate task handover to successor Weekly 1-on-1 mentoring session Weekly 1 hour Expatriate PMS system training (reports, Month 1–3 2 hrs/wk Expatriate dashboards, booking management) Smart lock / CCTV system training Month 1–2 4 sessions Expatriate + vendor relationship handover Airbnb/OTA listing management Month 2–4 Weekly Expatriate (photography, descriptions, pricing, review responses) Housekeeping & maintenance Month 3–5 Shadowing Expatriate scheduling workflows SOP documentation: expatriate Ongoing Monthly Expatriate writes all key processes in English for company use Digital content creation Month 4–6 Weekly Expatriate (Canva, basic photo editing, listing images, social posts) External course: property mgmt Year 1 1 course Company pays or hospitality operations cert Internal performance review Quarterly 1 session HR + Manager of succession plan progress ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ PART 5 — COMPETENCY MILESTONES ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Year 1 [MM/YYYY – MM/YYYY] □ Successor understands all PMS functions and daily reports □ Handles 30% of guest check-in/out operations independently □ Completes external hospitality/property operations course □ HR quarterly review documents progress — filed Year 2 [MM/YYYY – MM/YYYY] □ Successor manages housekeeping schedule independently □ Handles 50% of Airbnb/OTA listing updates □ Produces 3 key SOPs for operations department □ Runs weekly ops briefing with team under expatriate oversight Year 3 [MM/YYYY – MM/YYYY] □ Successor leads operations during expatriate leave periods □ Handles 75% of all operational responsibilities independently □ Expatriate role shifts to advisory & training only □ Renewal EP application submitted with updated succession plan Year 4 [MM/YYYY – MM/YYYY] □ Successor operates full role independently □ Expatriate focuses only on complex or new property onboarding □ All SOPs completed and handed over to company Year 5 [MM/YYYY – MM/YYYY] □ Full transition complete — local holds role independently □ EP not renewed (or employee promoted to Cat II if warranted) □ Final transition report submitted to ESD ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ PART 6 — HANDOVER & BUSINESS CONTINUITY ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Overlap Period : 3–6 months before end of EP where both expatriate and local work in role together Continuity Assurance: All critical workflows documented as SOPs held by Maple Home before expatriate departs Contingency : If local successor is not ready by Year 5, Maple Home will extend by promoting the worker to Category II (salary RM 10,000+) with a new EP application and revised succession plan ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ DECLARATION ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Maple Home Sdn Bhd confirms this Succession Plan is genuine and will be actively implemented. Documentation of all training activities will be maintained and made available to ESD upon request. Signed: ___________________________ Date: __________ Name : [Director/HR Director Full Name] Title : [Managing Director / HR Director] Maple Home Sdn Bhd Stamp : [Company Stamp]
Tick off every item before submitting the EP application. Nothing should be missing.
0 of 18 items completed
Print on company letterhead. Replace all [BRACKETS] with actual details.
JOB DESCRIPTION Maple Home Sdn Bhd Job Title : Operations Executive Department : Operations Reports To : Operations Manager / Director Employment Type : Full-Time Monthly Basic Salary: RM [5,000 – 6,500] ──────────────────────────────────────────── COMPANY OVERVIEW ──────────────────────────────────────────── Maple Home Sdn Bhd is Malaysia's largest independent short-stay service apartment management company. We manage 2,000+ units across KL and Selangor, delivering hotel-standard experiences to guests on Airbnb, Agoda, Booking.com, and other platforms. ──────────────────────────────────────────── ROLE OVERVIEW ──────────────────────────────────────────── The Operations Executive is responsible for the end-to-end daily operations of assigned properties, ensuring seamless guest experiences, optimal unit performance, and efficient coordination across all operational teams. The role requires a rare combination of hospitality operations expertise, property management system (PMS) proficiency, digital content capability, and smart property technology skills. ──────────────────────────────────────────── KEY RESPONSIBILITIES ──────────────────────────────────────────── Operations Management • Oversee daily operations of [X] service apartment units • Coordinate check-in/check-out processes and guest requests • Manage housekeeping scheduling, quality control & inspections • Oversee maintenance task assignments and vendor follow-up • Handle guest escalations and resolve issues promptly Technology & Systems • Operate and maintain Property Management System (PMS): reservations, reports, occupancy data, pricing inputs • Manage smart lock systems (Yale, Igloohome, etc.) — access code generation, battery/device monitoring • Oversee CCTV, WiFi, and IoT sensor systems across units • Liaise with tech vendors for system issues and upgrades Digital Listing Management • Update and maintain listings on Airbnb, Agoda, Booking.com, Expedia — title, description, pricing, house rules • Produce room photography, edit listing images, create digital content using Canva / Adobe tools • Monitor and respond to guest reviews across all platforms • Analyse occupancy reports and suggest pricing adjustments Reporting & Administration • Produce weekly and monthly operational reports / dashboards • Maintain operations SOPs and process documentation • Coordinate with finance for revenue reconciliation • Assist in onboarding new properties to the Maple Home system ──────────────────────────────────────────── REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS & SKILLS ──────────────────────────────────────────── • Diploma or Degree in Hospitality, Business, IT, or related • Minimum 2–3 years operations experience (service apartment, hotel, or short-stay property management preferred) • Proficiency in Property Management Systems (PMS) • IT literacy: smart home devices, CCTV, network troubleshoot • Digital content skills: Canva, photo editing, OTA platforms • Fluent in English (written and spoken); Arabic an advantage • Strong organisational and multi-tasking ability • Experience in a fast-paced, high-volume hospitality setting ──────────────────────────────────────────── WHY THIS ROLE REQUIRES A SPECIALIST HIRE ──────────────────────────────────────────── This role demands a unique combination of operational, IT, and digital content skills in a short-stay hospitality context. Despite active recruitment on MyFutureJobs and JobStreet, no Malaysian applicant meeting all criteria was identified. The combined skill requirement — particularly short-stay PMS proficiency, smart property technology, and digital listing management — is uncommon in the local labour market. Prepared by: [HR Manager Name] Date: [DD/MM/YYYY]
[Maple Home Company Letterhead]
Date: [DD/MM/YYYY]
To: Expatriate Services Division (ESD)
Jabatan Imigresen Malaysia
RE: JUSTIFICATION FOR EXPATRIATE HIRE — OPERATIONS EXECUTIVE
We, Maple Home Sdn Bhd (SSM No. [XXXXXX-X]), write to confirm
that we have made genuine efforts to recruit a Malaysian citizen
for the role of Operations Executive prior to engaging a foreign
national.
RECRUITMENT EFFORTS:
Platform : MyFutureJobs (jobsmalaysia.gov.my)
Posted on : [Date] | Closed on: [Date]
Applications : [X] received
Platform : JobStreet.com.my
Posted on : [Date] | Closed on: [Date]
Applications : [X] received
OUTCOME:
Despite receiving applications, no candidate met the full
requirements for this role, specifically:
(a) Hands-on experience with short-stay PMS systems
(b) Smart property technology management (smart locks,
CCTV, IoT devices in a hospitality context)
(c) Digital listing management for OTA platforms with
visual content creation capabilities
The combination of these skill sets — hospitality operations,
IT literacy, and digital content creation in a service apartment
setting — proved difficult to find in the local market.
PROPOSED HIRE:
Following our unsuccessful local recruitment, we propose to
hire [Syrian Worker Full Name], a Syrian national registered
with UNHCR Malaysia (Card No. [XXXXXX]), who brings [X] years
of relevant experience combining operations management, IT
systems, and digital content production.
We are committed to implementing the attached Succession Plan
to develop a local Malaysian replacement within the EP tenure.
Yours sincerely,
_____________________________
[Director / HR Director Name]
Maple Home Sdn Bhd
[Date]
[Company Stamp]
[Maple Home Company Letterhead] Date: [DD/MM/YYYY] PRIVATE & CONFIDENTIAL To: [Syrian Worker Full Name] SUBJECT: LETTER OF PROMOTION AND SALARY ADJUSTMENT Dear [First Name], We are pleased to inform you of your promotion and salary adjustment effective [DD/MM/YYYY], as follows: Previous Position : [Previous Title, e.g. Operations Staff] New Position : Operations Executive Department : Operations Reports To : [Operations Manager / Director Name] Previous Basic Salary : RM [Previous Amount] per month New Basic Salary : RM [5,000+] per month This adjustment reflects your contributions to Maple Home and your expanded scope of responsibilities as detailed in the attached updated Job Description. All other terms of your employment remain unchanged unless otherwise stated in writing. Please sign and return the duplicate copy of this letter as your acceptance of the above terms. Yours sincerely, _____________________________ _____________________ [Director Name] Employee Acceptance Managing Director / HR Director Maple Home Sdn Bhd [Company Stamp] Date: _______________
Every link below is an official Malaysian government portal, statutory body, or internationally recognised organisation. Verified May 2026.