The case for staying, the case for going, and how to tell which is yours
It's the Monday after your performance review, and the figure that sticks with you isn't your score. It's the one from a Deloitte survey a coworker passed along with no comment: a mere 5% of women expect to remain at their current employer for more than five years. You've been with yours for nine. After reading the line a second time, you close the laptop and sit back.
Honestly, the review didn't contain anything wrong with the work. "Solid year. Carry on as you are." Your manager delivered it warmly and sincerely, and that's exactly the trouble. A plateau is what "carry on as you are" really signals. Nobody on the leadership team in Henrico heard that they should simply keep their current course. Instead, they were invited to name the direction they'd like to pursue next.
SHORT What is actually at stake
Stay, and you hold onto things that take years to rebuild: the trust you've earned, the colleagues who finish your sentences in meetings, the retirement match that fully vests in two years, a commute in Henrico or Chesterfield you could drive blindfolded. You also keep the plateau, and plateaus endure exactly as long as you allow them to.
Leave, and you give all of that up for a story that hasn't been written yet. Picture a newly hired manager, a web of office politics you never learned, and a full year spent proving again what you had already shown a decade earlier. The recruiter's excitement is genuine, and so is the reality that her fee arrives when you sign, not when you're content.
SHORT The turning point
The 5% isn't a judgment against staying. It's a judgment against staying out of habit. Those surveyed women in Central Virginia haven't said they intend to resign. They're declining to promise they'll remain, which is a different and far more sensible stance. Therefore, the genuine question is not whether you belong with the 5%. Ask yourself whether you would take this job again today, at this pay, under this manager, if an offer arrived in Glen Allen as a brand-new opportunity. If yes, stay, but do it deliberately. If your answer amounts to "well, there's the match," you already know the answer, and the match isn't it.
Why this goes further than a single performance review, here in Richmond and across Central Virginia.
That same Deloitte study, drawing on 7,500 women across 15 countries, found that 36% describe their stress as higher than a year ago, and 29% rate their mental health as poor. Loyalty is not the thing being measured there. It's exhaustion. A woman who spends nine years in a position that stopped growing around year five isn't being faithful. Her employer will gradually fold her into the team, and any praise she gets will arrive as a memo rather than a promotion.
Here are three actions to start on this week
1. Draft the two offers. Write a single page that presents your present role the way a recruiter in Short Pump would pitch it, covering title, compensation, manager, scope, and next step. On another, sketch the strongest realistic alternative, whether in the Richmond market, Northern Virginia or remote. Read both without emotion. One will look like a job you'd actually choose.
2. Raise the question that your review never touched. "What would need to be true for me to be considered for the next level, and by when?" A real answer always comes with a timeline. "Carry on as you are" never does.
3. Schedule one outside conversation. Not an interview, just a coffee with someone at a Richmond-area chamber event, a NAWBO Richmond gathering or a local women's network. Spend an hour on this exercise and you'll discover your market value from someone in Chesterfield who hasn't already settled on it for you.
That figure on your paycheck was never meant to push you out the door. It was revealing that most women have stopped assuming they'll stay, and maybe it's time you stopped assuming it too.