PurposeEmployee engagement (EE) is an expression of a person's own preferred task behaviours that promote their relationship with work and personal physical, cognition and emotion and make them more active in terms of vigour, dedication and level of absorption with their work. To deal with EE in different environments and organisations, it is necessary to both understand and continually assess their employees. This paper presents an instrument which was developed to measure EE for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Thailand.Design/methodology/approachThe study was conducted in three stages to develop an EE measurement scale. To begin with, 18 questions were developed for a questionnaire based on the concepts of EE and validated using exploratory factor analysis (EFA) which is split into the dimensions of vigour, dedication and absorption. A survey was then conducted with 270 employees in SMEs. Finally, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), convergence and validity were tested along the three engagement dimensions.FindingsThis research extended and broadened the EE concept to provide theoretical support for engaging with intelligence research. Three dimensions were developed to measure EE, including aspects of vigour, dedication and absorption with their work.Research limitations/implicationsThe questionnaire used was produced primary data collection which was self-assessed, and data was collected only from the sample of employees working for SMEs in high-growth sectors of the Thai economy. The EE findings exhibited a good fit, but the results require further future refinement and validation using a larger sample size and sampling area.Practical implicationsThe EE questionnaire has practical uses for monitoring management behaviour and can assist practitioners to assess the level of EE. This knowledge will help to encourage and support practitioners to improve EE. This research also provides other measurements for assessing EE in organisations.Originality/valueThe EE questionnaire validity will facilitate future studies on the boundaries of EE measurements in the context of SMEs. The empirical research results verified that EE assessment offered new perspectives to explore vital individual EE which is necessary for SMEs. This instrument can also support and help researchers to effectively understand EE and explore its potential in future studies.