Safety Knights

I'm located in Kentucky and we have an OSHA Approved State Plan. It can definitely be a hassle to comply. At my previous employer, we were based out of Kansas (federal OSHA), but did a lot of work in Kentucky and North Carolina (both state plans). I'd have to check out applicable regulations prior to us bidding on jobs to see if we needed to conduct any additional trainings prior to performing work in that particular state. When it comes to training, however, there's not a HUGE variance. However, some states have additional industry-specific training. For example, Michigan OSHA (MIOSHA) has standards related to automotive operations, so my clients up there at Toyota/Lexus dealerships did have some off-the-wall training requirements for that. Overall, though, it's a hassle just verifying, but ends up not being too bad in the long run.

I worked for a company that has 300 locations in the US, I think in every state but 8! Drew is right is surely is a hassle! My companies HQ was in Ohio, a Fed State. My plants were in WI, MI and MN, two state plans and one Fed. In those three states what I did was take the 1910 as the "base" which is what the law says from a compliance standpoint. Most of the differences in compliance are relatively minor, praise the Lord!

I do the think the state plans tend to have more requirements in training. Fortunately for me I had a great on-site guy in MN that took care of business well so I did not have to worry about it much. My home state is Michigan and when it comes to training they actually have a SET (Safety Education and Training Div) in MiOSHA that is very very helpful and will actually train your people or did. Back in the 80s I personally received a lot of SET MiOSHA Safety Training.
In MI at least where I spent the first 36 years of my life and career, Drew is right, lots of auto stuff! MiOSHA and the UAW work as lot together and everyone use to say they were "in bed together".

I left MI in 1990, but prior to that even though I was a Company Management Manager in Ops and Personnel (what we use to call HR) I quite often called the UAW Safety Office in Detroit for their recommendations and suggestions in H&S! I even had a UAW Safety Rep help me with a MiOSHA Citation back in the day!

My company has locations all across the US (fed OSHA and state-plan states). Before I answer your question, it might be worth noting that my company highly encourages advancement within the company - leading many people to obtain new roles in different states. We also work hard to keep our culture the same no matter where we are located on the globe. With this said, and for the vast majority of our training, we typically lean on the state that has the strictest rules (states like CA, NY, and MI) and incorporate those rules across all sites. There are exceptions to this, but that is our general philosophy. This way, the culture (to include training) remains consistent no matter where our employees work.