Little Corporate Schoolhouse is a great expression for the prevailing attitude – one I’m definitely going to steal!

The quibble is that I think ‘training’ is more narrow in focus and goals than ‘learning.’ Training: the essentials of tracking leads and contacts using the new system. Learning: applying that system so you’re a higher-performing salesperson.

But I often work in instructional design, so I would say that, wouldn’t I?

Your main point is definitely on target. Employers (and not a few employees) tend to have the Little Corporate Schoolhouse model: scheduled courses, counts of student-days, training as inoculation.

Sometimes, too, it’s Gresham’s Law at work: the administrative ease of box-ticking drives out less familiar, less docile alternatives.

To say nothing of “training” that tries to do what improved tools, standards, processes, feedback systems, or support systems could do better (and with less irritation to the victims… I mean learners.)