More prizes added to Employee Commuting Survey

As you read in last week’s issue of VCH News, four hospital sites in VCH (Lions Gate, Vancouver General Hospital, Richmond Hospital and UBC Hospital) are in the midst of a two-week Employee Commuting Survey that concludes Oct. 3.

The survey is open to all employees – not just VCH staff – who work at these sites.

The survey will help identify how everyone commutes to work now and what programs would be the most desired and beneficial in the future.

Whichever way you get to work, Vancouver Coastal Health and TravelSmart are working to make it better.

Since the launch email went out Monday, new prizes have been added to encourage employees to complete the short online survey. Each survey participant is now eligible to enter the draw to win:

• Two $50 MEC cards
• Four $25 MEC cards
• Five $20 Starbucks cards

And, of course, the following prizes remain up for grabs, too:

• Richmond Hospital – One of five 10-visit passes to the Richmond Olympic Oval
• LGH – one of six Flex10 membership passes to a North Vancouver Recreation Centre facility
• VGH – One of 10 1-month Flexipasses for Vancouver Park Board facilities
• UBC Hospital – One of three 1-month Flexipasses for Vancouver Park Board facilities

The survey can easily be completed at work or at home, but if you want help there will be onsite support at each hospital from 11 am to 1 pm on select days over the survey period.  If you know of colleagues who do not have access to email, paper copies will be available.

Troubleshooting tips

Googlemap made some changes recently that were not shared with the survey’s software developers – we apologize for any inconvenience this has caused. But here are a few tips to help:

1. In Question 1, when reporting trips where you combine two modes, avoid using the word ‘SkyTrain’ in any location description. Say simply ‘Broadway Station, Vancouver BC’ or, ‘Scott Road Station, Surrey, BC’
2. If the map shows an incorrect location as indicated by the ORANGE marker, you can alternatively click and hold on the ORANGE marker and drag to the location of the change mode point directly on the map. The distance will be recalculated automatically. Note this change will not affect the text entered, however the location text is neither saved nor sent as part of the transaction. Only the distance is sent.
3. If after entering a location and you get an error message DATA NOT AVAILABLE, it is likely you have entered the word Skytrain in the location, try removing Skytrain word, and retry.
4. It also appears that if the word Skytrain was entered as part of the search string, a default location returned by Googlemap is the city centre of the city was entered in the search string. That seems to be why the ORANGE marker sometimes is placed randomly away from the actual Skytrain location.

5. If using the survey on Internet Explorer 6, 7 or 8 and you see a popup error message indicating Script has stopped, please press the Continue script in order to complete the survey.
6. If using Internet Explorer 6, it may be possible the map may not show up in any popup,although distances should still be calculated. These distances should be correct as determined by Googlemap. Or, drop by the Mobile Survey table listed on the poster to complete your survey online with our equipment.