Overhaul doesn't always need a named actor attached to it. When who did the work matters less than the fact that it's done, English falls back on the passive voice -- and learning only the active verb pattern leaves a real gap in exactly the reporting contexts where this comes up most.
The two ways to drop the actor
The true passive is built on the verb:
"The pricing model was overhauled last quarter."
"The onboarding process was completely overhauled after last year's customer complaints."
There's also an active alternative that uses the noun form instead:
"The legacy codebase underwent an overhaul after years of accumulated technical debt made new features too slow to ship."
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Start learning for free →Both sentences let you leave the actor out entirely. Neither one is wrong for doing so -- in status updates and retrospectives, naming who did the work is often beside the point compared to reporting that it happened.
Why the passive matters here specifically
Passive voice is the default way English speakers report completed structural changes when the emphasis belongs on the outcome, not the actor. A learner who only knows "we overhauled X" will sound noticeably less natural the moment the context shifts to a retrospective, a status report, or any writing where the focus is what changed, not who changed it.
Don't mix the two constructions' grammar
"Was overhauled" is a true passive built on the verb. "Underwent an overhaul" is grammatically active, but it's built on the noun. Both accomplish the same goal -- dropping the actor -- but they're built differently underneath, and mixing their grammar produces something like "was underwent an overhaul," which is wrong on both counts at once.
Practice scenarios
Practice describing a completed overhaul without naming who did it in situations like:
- writing a status update where the outcome matters more than the actor
- reporting in a retrospective that a system has already been rebuilt
- choosing between the true passive and the noun-based active alternative
Useful practice phrases:
- "[System] was overhauled [timeframe]."
- "[System] underwent an overhaul after [reason]."
- Not: "[System] was underwent an overhaul."
Sometimes the most useful thing a sentence can do is leave the actor out.
The passive voice is how "overhaul" does exactly that.
Lyra Practice helps advanced non-native English professionals learn the nuance of high-value workplace expressions and practice using them in realistic scenarios, so their English sounds natural, precise, and senior at work. Try Lyra Practice.