onboarded

Onboarded is the past tense and past participle of the verb onboard. It refers to bringing a person, system, or entity onto a group or platform and helping them become integrated, prepared, or productive.

In human resources, onboarding is a structured process that includes recruitment, orientation, training, access provisioning, and cultural acclimation. When a new employee completes this process, they are described as having been onboarded. The term emphasizes that a new hire has moved from candidate status to an active, contributing member of the organization.

In customer onboarding, the term describes activities that introduce a new customer to a product or service. This can include account setup, data import or migration, product configuration, and initial guidance to achieve value quickly. For software and platforms, onboarding focuses on user setup, feature discovery, and guided tutorials to reduce time to first success.

The verb onboarded is also used more broadly to refer to bringing other entities onto a system or process, such as vendors, devices, or new teams. It often implies a completed transition from external or initial involvement to regular participation or operation.

Etymology-wise, onboarded derives from on board, a nautical phrase originally signaling admission to a ship’s crew, later extended to organizations and systems. While the noun onboarding is common across contexts, onboarded remains a standard past tense form in professional writing. Some style guides note that onboarding as a process is preferred, while onboard or onboarded is used for actions within that process.