BorgWarner has been recognized on the Forbes America’s Best-In-State Employers 2026 list for the fifth consecutive year, putting employee experience back in focus at a global automotive supplier navigating a major shift toward electric, hybrid and software-defined vehicles. The recognition, produced with Statista, is based on employee and public evaluations rather than company-submitted workplace claims.

Workplace recognition can be easy to dismiss as another corporate accolade. But for an automotive supplier undergoing technological and organizational change, employee sentiment can provide a useful window into how effectively a company is managing its workforce transformation.

BorgWarner has been named to the Forbes America’s Best-In-State Employers 2026 list for the fifth consecutive year. Forbes and Statista selected companies through an independent survey involving more than 245,000 U.S. employees at companies with at least 500 U.S. workers, with more than 2 million employer evaluations considered, according to the announcement.

The ranking uses two forms of evaluation: employees’ own assessments and ratings from friends, family members or members of the public working in the same industry. That makes the recognition different from an employer award based primarily on internal HR metrics.

For BorgWarner, the timing is notable. The Auburn Hills, Michigan-based company is simultaneously reshaping its workforce around electric vehicles, hybrid propulsion and other technologies intended to improve vehicle efficiency.

Its 2025 annual report counted approximately 37,500 workers globally, including 10,800 in the Americas, 11,900 in Asia and 14,800 in Europe. About 7,700 were engineers.

That scale creates a different employee-experience challenge from that of a software startup.

Employee experience meets automotive transformation

BorgWarner is a major supplier to the global automotive industry, providing propulsion and efficiency technologies for combustion, hybrid and electric vehicles. Its workforce spans manufacturing operations, engineering, technical centers and corporate functions.

The company’s workforce strategy therefore has to accommodate two pressures at once: maintaining manufacturing expertise while developing capabilities for newer automotive technologies.

Its 2025 filing says the company provides formal development opportunities across career stages, including leadership development, technical training and mentoring. It also says BorgWarner surpassed its goal of filling the majority of leadership positions internally in 2025.

That internal-mobility component is increasingly important across industrial companies.

As automotive manufacturers and suppliers invest in electrification, software, advanced electronics and connected vehicle technologies, employers need to retrain existing workers as well as recruit new specialists.

For HR teams, that makes employee development more than an engagement initiative. It becomes part of the company’s technology transition.

What the Forbes methodology actually measures

The fifth consecutive recognition is meaningful, but it should not be interpreted as a comprehensive measure of BorgWarner’s workplace performance.

Forbes and Statista’s methodology relies heavily on employee perceptions and external evaluations. That captures an aspect of employer reputation that financial filings and corporate sustainability reports cannot.

It does not, however, independently establish that every employee experiences the company in the same way.

BorgWarner reported overall voluntary employee turnover of 10.2% in 2025, with a 7.4% rate among salaried employees and 11.8% among hourly employees. The company also reported a workforce of 25,900 hourly and 11,600 salaried employees.

Those figures provide useful context: employee retention remains a measurable operational concern even at a company receiving repeated external recognition.

That is particularly relevant for industrial employers, where replacing experienced manufacturing and engineering workers can carry significant training and productivity costs.

The HR technology angle

BorgWarner’s recognition also illustrates how the definition of HR technology is expanding.

Employee experience increasingly depends on systems that connect learning, workforce planning, performance management, internal mobility and employee communications. For a global manufacturer, those systems need to work across different labor markets, job types and geographic regions.

Companies such as Microsoft, SAP, Workday and Oracle are increasingly positioning AI and analytics as tools for identifying skills gaps, recommending learning and improving workforce planning.

Automotive manufacturers have an additional challenge: the skills required for future products can differ dramatically from those that supported previous generations of vehicles.

That makes skills intelligence and learning technology particularly relevant.

An employee who has spent years working in conventional powertrain manufacturing may possess valuable domain expertise while simultaneously needing training in high-voltage systems, battery technology, power electronics or software-enabled production processes.

A sophisticated HR technology strategy can help employers identify that transition at the individual and organizational level.

BorgWarner’s workforce strategy goes beyond recognition

The company’s own filings point to several areas that extend beyond the Forbes ranking.

BorgWarner says its human-capital approach includes recruitment and retention programs, competitive compensation and benefits, employee development and efforts to maintain a workplace where employees feel safe and respected. Its board oversees talent reviews and succession planning.

Safety is particularly important in a manufacturing-heavy organization.

BorgWarner reported a global workforce total recordable incident rate of 0.36 in 2025, which it said was within the top quartile for its industry, and reported that 95% of its manufacturing sites were ISO 45001 certified.

These metrics illustrate why employee experience in industrial companies cannot be reduced to office perks or engagement surveys.

For factory workers, workplace quality can encompass physical safety, scheduling, pay, skills development, management practices and opportunities for advancement.

Why employer reputation matters during skills transition

The automotive industry’s transformation is increasing competition for engineering and technical talent.

BorgWarner says it employed approximately 7,700 engineers at the end of 2025, making technical workforce development a significant component of its overall talent strategy.

Repeated recognition from employee-focused rankings can help companies compete for talent, but reputation alone will not solve the skills problem.

The more important test is whether employees can see a viable career path as the underlying technology changes.

That is where HR leaders increasingly have to work alongside engineering and operations executives. Workforce planning can no longer be separated cleanly from product strategy when the products themselves are changing rapidly.

For BorgWarner, the fifth consecutive Forbes recognition provides a positive signal about employer sentiment. The bigger challenge is sustaining that sentiment while the company continues to evolve its workforce for a more electrified and technology-intensive automotive industry.

For HRTech vendors, the lesson is equally clear: the next generation of employee experience will be measured not only by engagement, but by whether organizations can help existing workers acquire the skills needed for their next jobs.

Market Landscape

Employer reputation rankings are becoming one piece of a broader workforce strategy as companies compete for specialized talent and attempt to retain experienced employees.

The pressure is particularly strong in automotive manufacturing, where electrification is changing demand for engineering, software, electronics and battery-related capabilities while traditional manufacturing expertise remains essential.

BorgWarner’s 37,500-person global workforce demonstrates the scale involved. Its 2025 workforce was approximately 31% in the Americas, 32% in Asia and 39% in Europe.

For HR organizations, the market is moving toward integrated skills management, learning, internal mobility, workforce analytics and employee experience platforms.

The competitive opportunity for HR technology providers is to help companies identify which skills they already possess, where gaps exist and how employees can move into emerging roles.

That is increasingly relevant for manufacturers such as BorgWarner, where the transition to electrified and software-enabled products requires both external hiring and internal reskilling.

Top Insights

• BorgWarner earned its fifth consecutive Forbes employer recognition, highlighting employee experience as automotive companies compete for engineering and technical talent.
• The company employed approximately 37,500 people globally in 2025, creating significant workforce-management challenges across manufacturing, engineering and technical operations.
• BorgWarner reported 10.2% voluntary employee turnover in 2025, showing why retention remains strategically important despite positive employer recognition.
• The company’s development programs and internal leadership pipeline illustrate how HR teams can support reskilling as automotive technology shifts toward electrification.
• HR technology increasingly connects employee experience with skills intelligence, learning, internal mobility and workforce planning as industrial companies transform their talent requirements.

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